TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Electric announced that about 70% of customers affected by outages had their power restored by early Monday.
The company said that many customers will have power sooner than the estimated date for their county, which is Monday night for Pasco and Thursday night for Hillsborough and Pinellas. Essentially all customers in Polk County had their power back by Sunday, according to a news release.
The company set a milestone of restoring 75% of customers' power by the end of Tuesday and was able to reach that by Monday Morning, officials said.
Their system experienced nearly 600,000 outages from the Category 3 storm, the release said. The outages were mainly caused by uprooted trees and storm debris that knocked down power lines and poles. Flooding also further contributed to the damage.
“Our full team is blanketing our entire service territory, doing what we can to take another big bite out of our outage count today,” Archie Collins, president and chief executive officer of Tampa Electric said in a statement. “To the remaining customers who still don’t have power... we ask for your patience. Please know we are coming.”
The release said more than 6,000 line workers, tree trimmers and other personnel are working around the clock in overlapping 16-hour shifts to restore power. Officials said
You can see the latest on power outages in the Tampa Bay area by clicking here.