(Reuters) More than 3.4 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power, after Hurricane Milton tore across Florida overnight, destroying homes and killing at least four people, according to data from PowerOutage.us.
Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Milton plowed into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.
Milton is forecast to become a powerful post-tropical storm by Thursday afternoon or evening, with gradual weakening expected during the next several days, NHC added.
The utility with the most customers hit was Florida Power & Light Company, with 1,167,660 clients without power, followed by Duke Energy, which has 1,023,033 clients without power.
Meanwhile, over 98,000 customers in Georgia and North Carolina were still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 200 people across six states, and was the deadliest named storm to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005.
