Hurricane Ian: 500K Floridians still out of power
There were over 42K personnel working to restore power by Saturday
Hundreds of thousands of Floridians were still without power Monday — just days after one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States dismantled the state.
According to PowerOutage.us, more than 530,000 homes and businesses in Florida did not have power as of 5:45 p.m. ET. That's down from about 600,000 people at noon and 2.6 million that were left in the dark right after Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 storm last week. Charlotte and Lee counties in Southwest Florida had the largest outages.
Ian continued to cause destruction up the coast to the Carolinas. However, the power outage map only shows a few hundred customers out in Georgia and in the Carolinas.
HURRICANE IAN: OVER 2.6M FLORIDIANS OUT OF POWER THURSDAY
Officials say utilities and their customers face a long road of recovery ahead, even with many restoration crews already working 24/7 to help residents.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEE | NEXTERA ENERGY INC. | 65.99 | -0.91 | -1.36% |
Florida Light and Power, a unit of NextEra Energy, tweeted Monday that crews have been working "around the clock" to help affected customers.
By Saturday, utilities already had over 42,000 restoration personnel "working diligently to get power restored," according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
TROPICAL STORM IAN INSURANCE LOSSES PROJECTED TO REACH $40 BILLION
Additionally, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told "Fox News Sunday" the federal government, including the Coast Guard and Department of Defense, had moved into position "the largest amount of search and rescue assets that I think we’ve ever put in place before."
President Joe Biden has also vowed to "do everything we can to get these communities back on their feet. "
However, the impacts of the storm aren't over.
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The National Weather Service warned we could see "one of the highest tides in the past decade" portions of the Atlantic coast and southern Chesapeake Bay and that "major coastal flooding" is expected.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.