Hurricane Idalia left more than 100,000 US homes without power

More than 100,000 homes and businesses in the U.S. states of Florida and Georgia remain without power this Friday after damage from Hurricane Idalia on Wednesday.

Gusts of wind and water have destroyed entire power grids, which could take weeks to restore.

According to PowerOutage.us, 100,000 homes and businesses are still without electricity.

That number includes almost all of the 28,000 customers of the Suwannee Valley Electric Co-op, which supplies electricity to Florida’s four inner counties over 6,600 kilometers of lines.

The co-op has warned its customers to be prepared to be without power for two weeks, as they have lost most of the main cables bringing electricity to the site, as well as more than 400 broken poles and 2,500 cases of damaged equipment or downed lines.

The company mobilized more workers from elsewhere, growing from 100 line workers, trimmers and other employees to over 750, and installing generators to keep some restaurants and businesses running.

“It will be some time before everyone gets electricity again,” co-op chief executive Mike McWaters told his clients.

The situation was less severe in the west, where the Tri-County electric cooperative initially warned its 14,500 customers of power outages for two weeks, but revised that information to say all but the most damaged homes would return to normal on Tuesday. .

In Valdosta, Georgia, where nearly half of the surrounding county’s 32,000 electricity customers were left without power, the local university stuck to plans to play football on Saturday but postponed the game overnight due to power problems.

The hurricane made landfall on the West Coast of the United States on Wednesday morning with sustained winds of 201 kilometers per hour in several areas of Florida.