Over three million people are without power after Hurricane Milton swept through Florida on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Thursday morning, the storm was a Category 1 hurricane with a maximum sustained wind speed of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. It is moving northeast at 18 mph towards the Sargasso Sea off of Florida's east coast.

As of 6:30 am ET, approximately 3,245,549 customers, primarily across Central Florida, are in the dark, according to data from USA TODAY's power outage tracker.

59,271 customers in Highlands County, Florida, and 50,053 customers in Flagler County are without power.

In Hillsborough County, 100% of the customers tracked, 430,747, are without power, making it the county with the highest number of outages in Florida.

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Hurricane Milton tracker:Storm exits Florida at Category 1 strength after slamming west coast

Florida power outage map

When will power come back?

Floridians could "experience longer than normal restoration times following the storm," according to Florida Power and Light Company, FPL.

"FPL crews will restore power between bands of severe weather as long as it is safe," the company stated in a press release on Wednesday.

Before the storm made landfall, Floridians were asked to rush to prepare for long-duration power outages.

"As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida’s west coast, Duke Energy Florida is urging its customers to prepare for this catastrophic storm and a lengthy power restoration process that will result in extended outages," Duke Energy stated on its website, which provides electricity to 8.4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.

On Monday, the company said it would mobilize around 10,000 responders to prepare for the high amount of outages its customers could face. Similarly, FPL prepared a restoration workforce of 17,000 people to address power outages after the storm.

Thursday morning, 766,984 Duke Energy Florida customers are facing power outages, according to Poweroutage.us. Originally, the company estimated that over a million of its customers would face extended power outages. Around 1,153,288 FPL customers are also without power.

Hurricane Milton tracker

Hurricane Milton spaghetti models

Illustrations include an array of forecast tools and models, and not all are created equal. The hurricane center uses only the top four or five highest-performing models to help make its forecasts.

Restoration efforts following outages

Once power outages begin, restoration efforts will be launched in force wherever and whenever it is safe to do so. But restoration may run into problems left over from Hurricane Helene.

Power restoration will be prioritized to restore power to the largest number of customers as quickly as possible. According to FPL, priorities are given to:

  • Power plants and damaged lines and substations
  • Critical facilities such as hospitals, police and fire stations, communication facilities, water treatment plants and transportation providers
  • Major thoroughfares with supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations and other needed community services.
  • Smaller groups and local areas

Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, follow her on X, formerly Twitter, Instagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz, or email her at jgomez@gannett.com

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