West Florida Electric Cooperative (WFEC) started the morning off with approximately 9,500 members without power. During the day, crews have worked diligently to restore power and as the day progressed those numbers decreased to just over 5,200 at noon, and then down to nearly 3,000 at 4:00 p.m. At 9:00 p.m. WFEC had 813 members without power caused by 109 individual outages across the four-county service area spanning from the Apalachicola River to just west of Ponce De Leon. This number is down from a high of over 10,000 members last night.

Downed power lines and trees have been some of the major contributors to these outages. Power has been restored to the majority of WFEC’s members but there is a small percentage who will remain without power until tomorrow due the sheer number of wide-spread outages and extensive damage across our service area. We expect the few that do remain without power to be restored by early afternoon tomorrow.

Please follow all manufacturer’s instructions when operating a portable generator and keep it at least 20 feet away from your home to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. If you are currently using a backup generator, it is a good idea to turn it off periodically to see if your utility power has been restored. We encourage everyone to stay hydrated and check on your neighbors.

For the most up-to-date outage numbers, visit www.westflorida.coop/outages.