Customers may experience a brief outage as we put other customers back in service
Tampa Electric has restored power to more than 90 percent of the customers affected by Hurricane Irma.
“We are in the home stretch,” said Gordon Gillette, president and chief executive officer of Tampa Electric. “Restoring the remaining customers will be slower and more difficult because the damage is extensive and requires some rebuilding. We will not stop until all our customers are restored.”
Tampa Electric expects to restore power to essentially all customers by Sunday night. Some customers with more complex damage may take longer to restore.
In total, 425,000 of our 750,000 customers were impacted by the storm, and power has already been restored to 385,000 of them. More than 4,000 line, tree and other personnel are working around the clock in 16-hour shifts to restore power quickly and safely to those customers who remain without power.
Some customers may experience a brief power outage as we put other customers back into service. Please wait at least 30 minutes before reporting a new power outage.
Over the past 10 years, Tampa Electric has invested $479 million to harden our equipment against severe weather. Hurricane Irma affected more customers than hurricanes Charley and Jeanne combined – and we are restoring service in less than half the time.
Tampa Electric would like to remind customers of these important tips to be safe after a storm:
- Fatigue and heat exhaustion can cause safety issues. Please ensure you are well rested and properly hydrated, especially while doing physically challenging tasks such as cleaning up your yard after a storm.
- Remember to keep away from downed power lines and urge others to be extremely cautious.
- Remember to use portable generators safely. Plug your appliances directly into the generator. DO NOT connect your portable generator into your home’s circuits. Connecting your generator to the circuits may cause power to flow to outside lines, posing life-threatening danger to restoration crews.
- Portable generators must not be taken into homes or any enclosed space (like a garage) where deadly carbon monoxide gases could build up.
- Stay out of floodwaters, as they can hide energized power lines or put you at risk of drowning.
Customer Service has 24-hour coverage – and extra staff on hand – to take emergency and outage-related calls. For customers with non-storm-related calls, please consider calling in a few days.
As customers who evacuated return to the area, we encourage them to report outages at their homes or businesses:
- The fastest, easiest way to report an outage is to visit tecoaccount.com/outage.
- Also, enroll in Power Updates from tecoaccount.com to text outage reports or get service updates via text, phone or email.
- Update the phone number and email associated with your account at www.tecoaccount.com/yourprofile. This helps when you report an outage.
- Residential and commercial customers may call Tampa Electric’s dedicated toll-free automated power outage phone system at 1-877-588-1010 to report a power outage or electric emergency.
Customers can monitor and track outages in their neighborhoods through the outage map at tampaelectric.com/outagemap. Tampa Electric also will use Twitter @tampaelectric to keep customers informed about outage restoration.
Tampa Electric, one of Florida’s largest investor-owned electric utilities, serves about 750,000 customers in West Central Florida. Tampa Electric is a subsidiary of Emera Inc., a geographically diverse energy and services company headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
