Hurricane Irma has knocked out power to nearly 4 million homes and businesses in Florida, threatening millions more as it creeps up the state's west coast.
Irma hit Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, but by afternoon as it barrelled up the west coast, it weakened to a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 177 kph.
So far, the brunt of the storm has affected Florida Power & Light's customers in the states' southern and eastern sections, and its own operations were not immune, either.
"We are not subject to any special treatment from Hurricane Irma. We just experienced a power outage at our command centre. We do have backup generation," FPL spokesman Rob Gould said.
FPL, the biggest power company in Florida, said more than 3.2 million of its customers were without power , mostly in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. More than 200,000 had electricity restored, mostly by automated devices.
The company's system will need to be rebuilt, particularly in the western part of the state, Gould said. "That restoration process will be measured in weeks, not days."
Large utilities that serve other parts of the state were seeing their outage figures grow as the storm pushed north.
FPL said on Friday that its two nuclear plants were safe.
