(Reuters) – Around 664,000 homes and businesses along the U.S. Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida were without power on Friday after severe storms battered the region overnight, according to data from power outage tracker and local utilities.
Texas had the most outages with about 212,300 out now, down from around 236,000 earlier in the day, followed by Louisiana with 176,600 out and Mississippi with 161,500 out, PowerOutage.us said.
The storms were still marching east across the Alabama-Florida border, where outages were rising, while clearer skies in Texas and Louisiana have allowed utilities to keep restoring power.
The utility with the most outages is Southwestern Electric Power Co (SWEPCO) with around 233,900 customers without power, mostly in Texas and Louisiana.
SWEPCO, which has already started restoring power to customers, noted on its Twitter page that “Many roads are blocked by some of the same downed trees that took down power lines.”
SWEPCO provides service to around 543,000 customers in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. SWEPCO is a unit of U.S. energy company American Electric Power Co Inc.
Units of U.S. energy company Entergy Corp had the second most outages with around 85,000 customers without power mostly in Louisiana and Mississippi.
“While some customers have already been restored, complete restoration will take time in the hardest-hit areas,” Entergy told customers in Louisiana on its website.
Entergy provides power to around 2.9 million customers in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Major outages by state:
State Outages
Texas 212,300
Louisiana 176,600
Mississippi 161,500
Alabama 35,500
Florida 78,100
Total Out 664,000
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Aurora Ellis)
