When the power is out, we know there are only a few things you want to know...
When will my power be on?
The estimated restoration dates for essentially all Tampa Electric customers is:
- Customers in Pasco County, by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, October 14.
- Customers in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, October 17.
Nearly 70 percent of our customers affected by outages from Hurricane Milton had their power restored by early morning on Monday, October 14.
- Essentially all customers in Polk County were restored by Sunday, October 13, ahead of the company’s October 14 goal.
- In Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, we set a milestone of restoring power to 75 percent of customers by the end of Tuesday, October 15. We reached that milestone by Monday morning and will continue working until essentially all customers are back in power by Thursday.
- We continue to make steady progress in Pasco County and we’re accelerating our efforts there.
For all customers who are still without power, we will continue working until everyone is restored.
Learn from our president and CEO, Archie Collins, where we’ve been working most recently and how we’re restoring power to every neighborhood as quickly as possible.
What have we done to restore power already?
Before the storm: Massive preparations and cooperation
It takes an army to respond to a storm like Hurricane Milton. When we heard the catastrophic weather predictions, we sprang to action. We assembled more than 6,000 utility workers from as far away as Canada, Texas and Minnesota and staged them safely outside Milton’s projected path. To host a crew this large, we built eight base camps across our service area, each with support personnel, tons of replacement electrical equipment and several acres of land for trucks and living facilities. To keep these heroes working around the clock, we provide sleeping trucks, laundry service, portable bathrooms, first aid, fuel stations and three meals a day.
Tampa Electric base camp at the Florida State Fairgrounds.
The first 48 hours after the storm: Public safety, damage assessments and emergency repairs
- Hurricane Milton did more damage to our transmission lines than we've seen in any recent storm. The lines had to be repaired before power could be delivered to our substations and neighborhoods.
- We also worked with our community partners to restore critical facilities like hospitals, police and fire stations and airports. Without these critical lifelines in place, the community couldn’t receive the lifesaving supplies and facilities needed to recover and survive.
- In addition to restoring more critical facilities, we started restoring homes and businesses to bring vital community and public service providers online. These included assisted living facilities, nursing homes, grocery stores, home improvement and building suppliers, water and wastewater pump stations and others.
- Crews also resolved life-threatening situations to ensure safety, like arcing power lines and trimmed trees and vegetation interfering with power lines and electrical equipment.
Learn more about the critical first 48 hours from our president and CEO, Archie Collins.
Saturday, October 12: Blanketing residential neighborhoods
At this phase of the restoration process, we had a growing number of utility workers in neighborhoods. We operate approximately 800 circuits that deliver electricity to homes and businesses, each circuit serving up to a thousand or more customers, and each requiring varying resources to repair. When making these repairs, we prioritize them in a way that restores power to the largest groups of customers in the shortest amount of time. It is important to note that customers in the same neighborhood may be on different circuits, which explains why one neighbor may have power and another does not.
Sunday, October 13: Making significant progress
We made significant progress throughout our service area, restoring essentially all customers in Polk County by Sunday, October 13, ahead of our October 14 goal. We continued to make steady progress in Pasco County and have sent more resources to Dade City to accelerate our efforts there.
Check back daily for updates on our restoration process. Thank you for your support as we recover together.
