Irma knocks out power to nearly 6.5 million - authorities

People wait to fill gas cans at a gas station in Fort Myers Florida on September 11 2017 after Hurricane Irma hit Florida Millions of Florida residents were without power and extensive damage was reported in the Florida Keys but most of the Sunshine State appeared to have dodged forecasts of catastrophic damage from Hurricane Irma PicAFPHurricane Irma knocked out power to about 65 million homes and businesses in the US Southeast mostly in Florida according to state officials and local electric utilitiesIrma hit southwest Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane the secondhighest level on the fivestep SaffirSimpson scaleIt gradually weakened to a tropical storm by Monday morning as it headed toward Georgia The storm which was moving into southern Georgia was packing maximum sustained winds of 60 miles 97 km per hour according to the US National Hurricane Centers latest update at 2 pm EDT 1800 GMTPower losses in Georgia which were nearing 400000 as of 1 pm EDT were expected to increase as the storm moved north In Florida the states biggest electric company said its outages had started to decline below the peak of 36 million by Monday afternoonA total of almost 45 million Florida Power amp Light customers have been affected by the storm with around 1 million getting service restored mostly by automated devicesWeve never had that many outages and I dont think any utility in the country ever has FPL Chief Executive Eric Silagy said at a news conference Monday It is by far and away the largest in the history of our companyFPL said it was still assessing the damage and could not yet say when it will restore service to most customers Some homes and businesses could be without power for weeks especially in the hardesthit areas like southwest Florida the NextEra Energy Inc ltNEENgt unit said As the storm pushed north outage figures were increasing at other large utilities including units of Duke Energy Corp ltDUKNgt Southern Co ltSONgt and Emera Inc ltEMATOgtDukes outages jumped to almost 12 million by midday Monday Emeras Tampa Electric utility reported 332000 homes and businesses had lost power by Monday afternoonFPL said its two nuclear plants were safe Both units at its Turkey Point facility located about 30 miles 48 km south of Miami were shut by early MondayThe company closed Turkey Points Unit 3 on Saturday as Irma approached the coast but decided not shut Unit 4 at that time because the hurricane track shifted away from the plant toward the western part of the Florida Peninsula FPL however shut Unit 4 on Sunday night due to a possible valve issue that was probably not related to Irma US Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said on MondayAt its St Lucie nuclear plant located about 120 miles 190 km north of Miami FPL reduced power at Unit 1 due to salt buildup from Irma in the switchyard NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said The plants other reactor Unit 2 continued to operate at full powerDukes retired Crystal River plant about 90 miles 145 km north of Tampa has spent nuclear fuel but Hannah said that was not a problem As Irma loomed and came ashore gasoline stations struggled to keep up as people evacuated Florida In the Atlanta metropolitan area about 545 stations or about 132 percent of the total were out of the fuel earlier on Monday according to information service Gas BuddyIrma is expected to sap demand for fuel for a time Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note on Monday but they cautioned that supply could remain strained due to refining capacity offline in the wake of Hurricane Harvey which hit Texas two weeks ago