Outages continue across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas
More than 300,000 utility customers across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas continued to be without power early Thursday morning amid Idalia’s devastation.
More than 149,000 customers were still without power in Florida as of around 7:30 a.m. ET, while more than 109,000 were affected by outages in Georgia, according to Poweroutage.us.
In South Carolina, power was out for more than 25,000 utility customers, while over 29,000 were impacted in North Carolina.
Efforts to restore power has been underway, with some of the tens of thousands of homes in Florida already reconnected after Idalia made landfall in the Big Bend region.
Life-threatening conditions still hitting North Carolina, NHC warns
Flooding and heavy rainfall continue to cause life-threatening conditions in parts of eastern North Carolina, the National Hurricane Center has warned.
“A Storm Surge Watch means there is a possibility of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline in the indicated locations,” the NHC said in a 5 a.m. ET update.
A tropical storm warning is in effect, covering from the South Santee River to the Virginia border as well as Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, and a storm surge warning covers coastal communities including Beaufort Inlet and Ocracoke Inlet.
The storm is expected to move east beyond the North Carolina coast at some point today — but tropical storm winds at its center could still reach 185mph. Tornadoes are also possible in the area, the NHC said.
Homes slowly reconnected to power grid in Florida and Georgia
Some of the thousands of households without power as a result of Idalia have been reconnected.
In Florida 143,000 customers remain without power, compared to some 150,000 late Wednesday, according to the tracking website Poweroutage.us as of 4 a.m. ET Thursday.
In Georgia…
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