(Reuters) – Over 560,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Florida on Monday, four days after Hurricane Ian crashed across the state on Sept. 28-29.
The death toll from the storm climbed past 80 as embattled residents in Florida and the Carolinas faced a recovery whose costs are expected in the tens of billions of dollars, and some officials faced criticism over their response.
Insurers, meanwhile, were bracing for a hit of up to $57 billion as they try to assess the damage from Ian in Florida and South Carolina, according to risk modeling firm Verisk.
Utilities have restored service to most customers affected by the storm. Ian knocked out power to more than four million customers in Florida.
The storm also left more than 1.1 million homes and businesses without power in North and South Carolina after hitting those states on Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Power has already been restored to customers in the Carolinas.
The utility with the most outages remaining, Florida Power & Light Co (FPL), said it expects complete restoration to 95% of customers who remain without power by Friday, Oct. 7. FPL is a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc.
Major outages by utility:
Power Company State/Pro Out Now Customers Served
vince
NextEra – FPL FL 369,100 5,280,000
Lee County Electric Co-op FL 180,700 238,000
Duke – Florida FL 17,200 1,766,000
Total Out 567,000
Source: PowerOutage.us and power companies
(Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru and Scott DiSavino in New York; editing by David Evans and Mark Potter)
