Nearly two-thirds of Tampa Bay area is without power after Hurricane Milton

Power outages across Tampa Bay

The number of power outages in the area are staggering. Millions across the Tampa Bay area were without power Thursday, and thousands of line crews from across the country are helping to restore power.

TAMPA, Fla. - Nearly 60,000 lineworkers are spreading across the area to get the lights back on, but it is going to take some time.

TECO says their crews are doing mostly triage work Thursday, trying to assess the damage.

They will then start going to the areas that either feed critical infrastructure like municipal pumps and health care centers, or to the areas with the biggest populations.

"By tomorrow night, I expect we're going to be able to come out with something much more definitive on exactly how long do we think it'll be before the bulk of customers are all going to have power back," said Archie Collins, the president of TECO. "But you will see over the course of today that number of 590,000 beginning to drop some people."

READ: Hurricane Milton aftermath: Millions without power as deaths, flooding reported

They have found that their substations and power plans are working fine, so their workers will be focused on fixing the system downed-line by downed-line.

The luckiest could start to see power back on within a few hours, but it will take longer for most.

"I can't say when the bulk of the customers will be back on, but what I can tell you is probably within the next 24 to 48 hours, we will begin giving estimated times of restoration to our customers," said Melissa Seixas of Duke Energy. "And that's an important step."

TECO has 584,000 outages out of a total 840,000 customers.
Duke Energy has 555,000 outages out of a total 985,000 customers.
And Florida Power & Light has 345,000 outages out of a total 500,000 customers in Manatee and Sarasota Counties.

Duke Energy says that as the assessments come in of where the damage is, they will start to send their 16,000 assets to stage in the area at localized base camps.

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