TAMPA, Fla. — Thousands of Tampa Electric customers are still without power two days after Hurricane Helene swept past the Tampa Bay region.
TECO officials say it's a matter of priorities. If they're going to send a line truck out to fix a transformer, they first want to do that in a neighborhood where that repair might help hundreds of customers get their power back rather than just a handful.
Unfortunately, for some people, it's taking longer. But so far, most people like customer Tim Jones are keeping things in perspective.
"Yes, so we lost power on Thursday night," Jones said. "And here it is Saturday night and it's still without power, so..."
While he’s been without power the last couple of days, Jones said he knows a lot of other folks have it a lot worse than he does.
"I can see that there are houses that aren't going to be back livable for months," Jones said. "More or less without power. So, it's a minor inconvenience for us."
Still, while others have their power back, Jones and a handful of his neighbors are still waiting.
In a statement, TECO said certain areas on their outage map, including the one where Jones lives, can be time-consuming to restore. The power company wants customers to know they haven't forgotten about them and promised, “We won't stop until everyone is back on.”
"They're saying today or tomorrow, so, that's fine," Jones said. "Yeah, it's not the end of the world."
TECO said that by Saturday night or by early Sunday morning they expect to have power restored to 96% of the customers who can receive electricity.