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Power companies warn of long outages as a result of Hurricane Milton
FOX 13's Evan Axelbank reports.
TAMPA, Fla. - Power companies serving the Tampa Bay area said residents should be prepared to be without power for a long time.
As Hurricane Milton strengthens, three power companies that service the area said they are as ready as they can be, to get the lights back on once it's safe to do so.
"If you're anywhere near that cone, certainly you should prepare to have power interruptions," said Governor Ron DeSantis. "That's just the reality of what we're dealing with."
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TECO, Duke and Florida Power and Light said they have no doubt that at least some of their 2.3 million customers in the Tampa Bay area will lose power.
"Customers should expect to have widespread and extended outages," said Mary Lou Carn of TECO.
But for how long depends on the storm.
What's the exact track? Does it take trees and lines down in the most populated areas? And how quickly can crews get from staging areas in West Tampa, Central Pinellas and Sarasota, to get to the downed lines and repair them?
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The first order of business for power crews will be hospitals, 911 call centers and sewage facilities. Then it's about bang for their buck.
"Main feeder lines may serve 2,000 people," said Melissa Seixas of Duke Energy Florida. "If we can repair those lines and get 2,000 people on. That's where we start."
Those lines then branch off into smaller neighborhoods and businesses. The crews that will be out scouring are being pulled not only from hometown teams, but also from other states.
Some are already helping in Georgia and North Carolina, so FPL is pulling teams from the far west of the United States.
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"We are strategically pre-positioning those crews so that as soon as it's safe to get out and restore power, we can do just that," said Chris McGrath of FPL.
Thousands of lineworkers will be helping to get power on to people like Linette Bailey of Tampa. She stocked up on ice on Monday to try to keep food from spoiling.
"How I ended up [in Tampa] was Hurricane Michael from 2018," she said. "So, I've lost everything before and came here to regroup and restart."
Another Bay Area resident, Bill Cummings, stocked up on gas for his generator.
"I'm very worried, because we lost power during Halloween for about 20 hours before it even started raining."
The governor said there were more than two million homes lost power in Hurricane Helene, and he has said they got it restored in record time.
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