Residents still without power after Hurricane Milton

As of 6:27 a.m., 187,910 Floridians are without power.

Tampa Power

TECO currently has 99,309 customers without power as of 6:37 a.m.

Hillsborough County has 88,821 residents without power, while Pasco County currently has 7,972 residents without power.

Residents can check out the outage map here.

Duke Energy

Duke Energy has more than 47,000 customers without power.

Pinellas County currently has 39,379 residents without power. Power is expected to be restored to most of Pinellas County by Tuesday night, according to Duke Energy.

Residents can check out the outage map here.

FPL

Florida Power & Light Company has 36,597 customers without power as of 6:36 a.m.

Manatee County has 13,590 residents without power, while Sarasota County has 14,480.

According to FPL, 95% of power should be restored by the end of Tuesday in Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Residents can check the outage map here.

Lakeland Electric

Lakeland Electric had 2,130 customers without power as of 6:47 a.m. Tuesday.

The estimated time power will be restored for customers who can safely receive it is Wednesday, Oct. 16, according to Lakeland Electric.

Residents can check the outage map here.

Peace River Electric Group

Peace River Electric Group currently has 267 customers in Manatee County without power.

Residents can check the outage map here.

Withlacoochee River Electric Coop

Withlacoochee River Electric Coop has 943 customers without power as of 6:46 a.m.

Hernando County has 288 residents without power, while Pasco County has 606 residents without power.

Residents can check the outage map here.

Why so many gas stations in Florida still have no fuel

Hurricane Milton passed through Florida days ago, but the devastating storm is still causing problems at gas stations.

Hundreds of gas stations in Florida are still without gas, including about half of the stations in the hard-hit Tampa area.

Floridians lucky enough to have access to working gas stations often find themselves stuck in long lines. And tensions have risen as fights over access to gasoline have been reported.

The good news is that help is on the way, and boats carrying gasoline are expected to arrive in Tampa in the coming days. In the meantime, the number of gas stations without gas has dropped dramatically.

The bad news is that experts say it could still be several days before the situation returns to normal.

“I would expect the headache to ease significantly over the next 2-5 days for Tampa, but there could be lingering outages for another 7-10 days as stations catch up,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

De Haan said for the rest of the state there should be “very noticeable” improvements over the next few days and the situation should be back to normal in 5-10 days.

As of 1 p.m. ET Monday, 17.3% of Florida gas stations were out of fuel, down from 33.2% on Sunday afternoon, according to GasBuddy.

This represents a considerable improvement, though it still means more than 1,300 gas stations in Florida remain empty five days after Hurricane Milton made landfall.

Nearly half (49.9%) of the Tampa metropolitan area’s 1,801 gas stations were out of fuel Monday afternoon, GasBuddy reported. That’s a drastic decline from 87.5% on Sunday afternoon and the first time below 50% since Wednesday.

Port delays after Hurricane Milton

The problem is that Florida relies heavily on the Port of Tampa Bay for fuel deliveries from Gulf Coast refineries. More than 43% of Florida’s gasoline, diesel and jet fuel moves through this key piece of infrastructure.

There are no pipelines delivering gasoline to the region to meet Florida’s daily appetite for 20 million gallons of gasoline.

According to FEMA, there are 70 million gallons of gasoline and other petroleum products on the way to Tampa in the next seven days.

Although the Port of Tampa Bay reopened Saturday morning after avoiding the catastrophic flooding some feared, it has not been operating at full capacity. Vessel movement has been restricted to daylight and one-way traffic, slowing the port’s ability to receive fuel.

Another problem is that analysts say some fuel terminals near the Port of Tampa Bay and Port Manatee have not reopened. That limits how much fuel these terminals can receive from vessels and prepare to be loaded onto trucks for delivery.

As a result, some fuel destined for Tampa’s gas stations can’t get off vessels.

“Things are piling up,” said Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates. “There are more than 30 million gallons of fuel sitting outside Tampa Bay, waiting to get in and they can’t because of one of these issues.”

Lipow is hopeful that by the end of the week, the fuel situation should be back to normal. The key, he said, is when the Port of Tampa Bay can fully reopen.

Frustration mounts

Anxious drivers in the Tampa area are facing long lines, and frustration has at times turned ugly.

The Pasco Sheriff’s Office said Friday it has received “numerous calls for service about disputes and arguments” at gas stations in Pasco County, which is just north of Tampa.

“We realize demand is great and frustration can be high as fuel companies work to replenish essential supplies, but we encourage you to be patient and respectful of others,” the Pasco Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

A security guard at a Tampa Bay Wawa station told Fox 13 that customers got into a fistfight.

“One girl hit another girl with her car, they were really fighting over gas… We had to call the police,” the security guard said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said officials are doing everything they can to get fuel supplies where they are needed, including highway patrol escorts for fuel tankers.

The state opened multiple public fuel sites where customers can receive 10 gallons of gas each for free.

However, those free gas sites have at times been overwhelmed.

At one location in St. Petersburg, the line for gas was several blocks long on Sunday and had to be temporarily halted by police, according to the Tampa Bay Times. One woman told the paper she waited more than four hours for gas and advised others to bring food and water if they planned to go.

“These lines are slow. “Very slow,” he said.

“Just intolerable”

The outages at gas stations underscore how vulnerable the region is to supply disruptions and demand spikes.

Demand for gasoline soared last week as millions of Florida residents heeded evacuation orders and others filled tanks to power generators.

Although the Gulf Coast maintains an extra supply of fuel, local regions often don’t. They typically operate under what’s known as “just-in-time inventory,” where they only receive what they would normally need.

“It runs like a well-oiled machine most of the time,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. “But when you have a disruption, ‘just-in-time’ can become just intolerable. That’s what we’ve seen in the last few days.”

Kloza said this is particularly true in the Tampa area because of how much the region relies on the Port of Tampa Bay for fuel deliveries.

“I think this will largely go away,” Kloza said. “By Wednesday or Thursday you will see gasoline everywhere and there will be no fights at the pumps.”