Factbox-Over 2.2 million Florida customers without power due to Hurricane Milton

(Reuters) -More than 2.2 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power on early Thursday, after Hurricane Milton made landfall on the state's west coast hours earlier, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT) on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kph) near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It has since weakened into a Category 2 hurricane, nonetheless still considered extremely dangerous.

The utility with the most customers hit was Florida Power & Light Company, which has about 768,132 clients without power, followed by Duke Energy, which has 624,885 clients without power.

"Customers should be prepared for extended outages. The unprecedented storm's catastrophic conditions and recent heavy rain will likely cause significant damage and restoration challenges," said Florida Power & Light Company.

The company added that it has a restoration workforce of more than 17,000 people and has pre-positioned crews throughout the state.

Over 109,000 customers in Georgia and North Carolina were still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helen. Helene, which killed more than 200 people across six states, was the deadliest named storm to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005.

Here are the major outages by utility in Florida:

Power Companies

Outages

Florida Power & Light

Company 768,132

Duke Energy

624,885

Tampa Electric

385,663

Lee County Electric

Coop 133,363

Withlacoochee River

Electric Coop 123,911

SECO Energy

58,000

Peace River Electric

Coop 56,175

Lakeland Electric

42,150

Orlando Utilities

Commission 23,220

New Smyrna Beach

Utilities 16,489

Total Out

2,231,988

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad and Daksh Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)