Five days and five nights after Hurricane Ian’s winds blew through the Tampa Bay area, Tampa Electric has restored power to essentially all customers who are able to receive it.
Some customers who are affected by other factors, such as flooding or damage to their home’s electrical equipment, may not be able to safely receive electricity. For a handful of customers with more complex damage, it will take additional time to restore. Tampa Electric will work with these customers until their issues are resolved.
“I would like to thank our customers for their patience, support and understanding during this restoration. I’m very proud that we completed this work safely, with no serious injuries,” said Archie Collins, president and chief executive officer of Tampa Electric. “We could not have completed this restoration as efficiently without the strong mutual-assistance support from our fellow utilities, including some who drove for two days to get here just to help us.”
About 3,000 line workers, tree trimmers and other personnel – from as far away as Oklahoma, Texas and Indiana – worked around the clock in 16-hr shifts to restore power quickly and safely to 295,000 customers.
