Hurricane Helene Hits Florida

(Reuters) – More than 350,000 homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday as Hurricane Helene approached the state’s Big Bend region, according to PowerOutage.us.

Hurricane Helene has intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane and is nearing the northeast Gulf coast, with expectations to make landfall this evening.

The utility company with the largest outage is Florida Power & Light Company, with 137,897 clients affected, followed by Duke Energy, which has 133,948 customers without power.

Todd Fountain, Duke Energy storm director, noted that the landfall could cause significant damage to infrastructure in the Panhandle and Big Bend areas, likely leading to extended outages.

Major Outages by Utility in Florida:

• Florida Power & Light Company: 137,897
• Duke Energy: 133,948
• Tampa Electric: 58,430
• Withlacoochee River Electric Coop: 12,140
• Lee County Electric Coop: 8,074

Total Outages: 366,035