# How Often Does the Power Go Out in Florida? (2026 Outage Data)

Florida's own EIA-reported outage minutes, six hurricanes since 2022, and the Eastern Interconnection and storm-hardening rule that make its grid behave differently than Texas's.

- Canonical: [https://generators.guide/guides/power-outages-in-florida](https://generators.guide/guides/power-outages-in-florida)
- Markdown: [https://generators.guide/guides/power-outages-in-florida.md](https://generators.guide/guides/power-outages-in-florida.md)
- Published: 2026-10-07
- Updated: 2026-10-07
- Author: Anna Persson

## Quick answer

In an ordinary year, without a named storm, the average Florida utility customer loses power for about 1.1 to 1.2 hours total, per EIA's own state-level reliability data for 2019 through 2024. That is one of the strongest ordinary-year figures of any storm-belt state, better than Texas's 2.2 to 2.9 hours. The number that actually matters is the storm-year number: 2024 averaged 24.8 hours per customer statewide, driven by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton landing two weeks apart, and 2022 averaged 16.9 hours because of Hurricane Ian. Florida's outage risk is not a weak grid, it is an exceptionally strong ordinary-year grid that a handful of named storms can overwhelm for days at a time, and that pattern, not the yearly average, should decide standby versus portable versus battery.

Florida does not have a weak grid. In the years without a major hurricane, the average customer's outage total is lower than Texas's, lower than the national average, and among the best of any state this site has measured. What erases that record is a small number of dated, well-documented storms. Here is what the government's own reliability numbers show, what caused the bad years, and how to use that pattern instead of the average when you size backup power.

We don't sell generators. We save you from buying the wrong one, and in Florida that starts with knowing whether your risk looks like a normal year or a storm year. For the cost side of the decision, see [what a standby generator actually costs installed in Florida](/guides/generator-install-cost-florida). If you have not yet picked a lane, [standby vs portable vs battery](/guides/standby-vs-portable-generator) walks the fit question in full.

## The data: an ordinary Florida year vs a storm year

The U.S. Energy Information Administration collects SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index, the total minutes an average customer is without power) and SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index, how many separate interruptions that customer has) from every state's utilities every year, and publishes two versions of each: one including "major event days" (named storms and other extreme events) and one excluding them.

| Year | Hours without power, all events | Hours without power, ordinary days only | Separate interruptions, all events | Separate interruptions, ordinary days only |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 24.8 | 1.1 | 1.78 | 0.74 |
| 2023 | 2.9 | 1.2 | 0.98 | 0.78 |
| 2022 | 16.9 | 1.2 | 1.46 | 0.83 |
| 2021 | 1.4 | 1.1 | 0.90 | 0.80 |
| 2020 | 3.3 | 1.2 | 1.14 | 0.89 |
| 2019 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 0.99 | 0.91 |

The "ordinary days only" columns barely move across six years: 1.1 to 1.2 hours, 0.74 to 0.91 interruptions. That is a genuinely strong background grid, and it beats Texas's ordinary-year figure (2.2 to 2.9 hours) in every single year on this table. The "all events" column tells a completely different story: it is roughly 11 times the ordinary-year figure in 2022 and more than 20 times in 2024, and both spikes land in exactly the years named hurricanes made landfall.

**Permanent source:** [generators.guide/guides/power-outages-in-florida](https://generators.guide/guides/power-outages-in-florida)

**Suggested citation:** Generator Guide, "How Often Does the Power Go Out in Florida?," EIA SAIDI/SAIFI analysis 2019-2024, checked October 7, 2026.

## What actually caused the bad years

Six named hurricanes made landfall in Florida or crossed it between 2022 and 2024. Each has its own primary-sourced casualty and outage record.

| Storm | Landfall | Peak power impact | Deaths and damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hurricane Ian | Sept 28, 2022, Cat 4/5, Cayo Costa | 3.28 million Florida customers lost power cumulatively; 2.78 million out at once at peak | 156 US fatalities, 66 direct (41 from storm surge, all in Florida); $112.9 billion total US damage, $109.5 billion in Florida, the costliest hurricane in Florida's history |
| Hurricane Nicole | Nov 10, 2022, Cat 1, near Vero Beach | FPL alone restored more than 465,000 customers, with about 18,000 still out the next morning | At least 5 indirect Florida deaths; about $1 billion total US damage |
| Hurricane Idalia | Aug 30, 2023, Cat 3, Keaton Beach | FPL restored nearly 200,000 customers; Duke Energy Florida reported more than 64,000 peak outages in its territory | 12 total US fatalities (1 direct, 3 indirect in Florida); $3.6 billion total US damage, mostly in the Big Bend region |
| Hurricane Debby | Aug 5, 2024, Cat 1, Big Bend | Duke Energy Florida reported about 97,800 peak outages, more than 90 percent restored within 24 hours | 18 total US and Canada fatalities, 5 direct in Florida; over $4 billion in US and Canada damage |
| Hurricane Helene | Sept 26, 2024, Cat 4, Big Bend | 1.69 million Florida customers lost power, the largest single-state loss of any state Helene touched | 175 direct US deaths (14 from storm surge, all in Florida), 250 total US deaths, the deadliest US hurricane since Katrina; $78.7 billion total US damage |
| Hurricane Milton | Oct 9, 2024, Cat 3, Siesta Key | FPL alone reported more than 2 million customers affected; Duke Energy Florida peaked above 1 million; Tampa Electric reported about 600,000 affected, roughly 70 percent of its customer base | 15 direct US deaths, all 12 US deaths in Florida (6 from a tornado near Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, 4 from falling trees, 2 from freshwater flooding); $34.3 billion total US damage, almost exclusively in Florida |

Read down that table and the pattern is not subtle: every one of Florida's worst outage years traces to a named storm with its own public report, not a generation shortfall or an aging-grid failure in the way some other states' bad years do. Helene and Milton landing roughly two weeks apart in 2024 is what pushed that year's statewide average to 24.8 hours, the highest on this table.

## Why Florida's grid responds differently than Texas's

Florida sits inside the Eastern Interconnection, one of the three major US electrical grids, reliability-coordinated by the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council (FRCC). That is a structural contrast with Texas, whose ERCOT grid is its own separate interconnection with, in ERCOT's own words, "limited external connections" to the rest of the country. Florida's membership in a shared interconnection makes it easier to request and receive mutual-aid line crews from other utilities after a storm, the kind of multi-state restoration convoy that shows up in every major hurricane's restoration timeline.

Florida also regulates storm hardening directly, rather than leaving it to individual utilities. Rule 25-6.030, Florida Administrative Code, implementing Section 366.96 of the Florida Statutes, requires investor-owned utilities to file Storm Protection Plans with the Florida Public Service Commission. The PSC's own November 2025 status report on those plans names four utilities currently covered: Duke Energy Florida, Florida Power & Light, Florida Public Utilities Company, and Tampa Electric. That rule is a genuinely different lever than Texas pulls: instead of a generation-market structure, Florida's main regulatory tool is a mandated, utility-by-utility hardening investment plan, covering things like pole replacement schedules and undergrounding in storm-prone areas.

Neither structure stops a hurricane from knocking down a transmission line. What they change is how fast the lights come back on afterward, and that is a distribution and restoration question, not a generation-shortage question like the one that caused Winter Storm Uri in Texas.

## What this means for your generator choice

Match the machine to the pattern that actually applies to you, not to the worst storm on record or the best ordinary year.

**If your household experiences the ordinary-year pattern** (closer to the 1.1 to 1.2 hour, single-interruption baseline above), a portable generator with a permitted interlock is usually the proportionate answer, and it is considerably cheaper to own. See [interlock kit vs transfer switch](/guides/interlock-kit-vs-transfer-switch) for the legal, permitted way to connect one.

**If you live in a hurricane-exposed coastal county**, your real risk is the multi-day, whole-region outage that Ian, Helene, and Milton each produced, not the ordinary-year number. That pattern, plus the state's High Velocity Hurricane Zone pad and anchoring rules and the fact that only about 16 percent of Florida households have piped natural gas, is the honest case for a standby system with automatic switchover. See the [Florida-specific installed cost breakdown](/guides/generator-install-cost-florida) before you budget one.

**Whichever lane you are leaning toward**, size it against your actual loads using [what size generator do I need](/guides/what-size-generator-do-i-need), and budget the full installed project rather than the machine sticker in [the real cost of a whole-house generator](/guides/real-cost-of-a-whole-house-generator).

**If your outages are short even in a bad year**, a home battery can be the lower-hassle, silent option. See the honest tradeoff in [generator vs home battery](/guides/generator-vs-home-battery).

**Whatever you run during a storm**, carbon monoxide risk rises every hurricane season as outages stretch past a day. Read [never run a generator indoors](/guides/never-run-a-generator-indoors) before the next storm, not during it, and work through the [hurricane season generator prep](/guides/hurricane-season-generator-prep) checklist before June.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How often does the power go out in Florida?

In a year without a major named storm, an average Florida utility customer loses power for about 1.1 to 1.2 hours total, per EIA's own state reliability data for 2019 through 2024. That is one of the strongest ordinary-year figures of any storm-belt state. The real variable is whether a hurricane makes landfall: in 2022 and 2024, the same statewide average jumped to 16.9 and 24.8 hours because of Hurricane Ian, and Hurricanes Helene and Milton landing two weeks apart.

### Is the Florida power grid getting more reliable?

Florida's ordinary-year numbers have stayed consistently strong (1.1 to 1.2 hours) across all six years measured, with no clear upward or downward trend. What has changed is regulatory: since 2020, Florida Administrative Code Rule 25-6.030 has required the state's investor-owned utilities (Duke Energy Florida, Florida Power & Light, Florida Public Utilities Company, and Tampa Electric) to file Storm Protection Plans with the Public Service Commission, a mandated hardening investment that was not required before. Whether that rule measurably shortens restoration times after the next major hurricane is not yet proven in this data; it is a regulatory change, not an outcome yet visible in the outage numbers above.

### Does being part of the Eastern Interconnection make Florida's outages shorter than Texas's?

It is a real structural difference, though it answers a different question than the one that usually gets asked. Florida's membership in the Eastern Interconnection, coordinated through the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council, makes it easier to bring in mutual-aid repair crews from other utilities after a storm, the kind of restoration help Texas's separately-interconnected ERCOT grid cannot casually call on in a systemwide emergency like Winter Storm Uri. It does not prevent the outage itself: a downed distribution line from hurricane winds knocks out power the same way regardless of which interconnection the state sits in. Florida's genuinely low ordinary-year numbers are a separate, and arguably more important, fact than its interconnection membership.

### Should I buy a standby generator just because of Hurricane Ian or Milton?

Those storms are the right reason to take Florida's outage risk seriously, but not automatically the reason to buy standby specifically. If your household's actual pattern is closer to the ordinary-year data (rare, short outages most years), a portable generator with a permitted interlock covers that pattern for a fraction of a standby project's cost. Standby earns its price when your realistic pattern includes the multi-day, whole-region outages that Ian, Helene, and Milton each produced, which is a real risk in hurricane-exposed coastal and Big Bend counties specifically.

## What we could not verify

- **A single statewide peak-simultaneous outage figure for Hurricane Milton.** NHC's own tropical cyclone report for Milton does not state one; the widely repeated 3.3 to 3.4 million figure traces to third-party aggregators, not a primary source, so we used each utility's own reported figure (FPL, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric) instead of a single statewide number.
- **Whether Duke Energy Florida's reported Helene outage figure is a peak or a cumulative total.** Duke's own release reads as cumulative restoration language rather than a stated peak-at-one-moment number, so we used NHC's statewide 1.69 million figure for Helene instead.
- **The exact statewide count of Florida municipal and cooperative utilities.** The PSC's Storm Protection Plan rule covers four named investor-owned utilities; municipal utilities like JEA, Orlando Utilities Commission, Gainesville Regional Utilities, and Lakeland Electric are referenced in the same PSC report but we could not confirm a complete statewide count or whether every Florida municipal utility and cooperative is covered.
- **Lee County Electric Cooperative's absolute peak outage count for Hurricane Ian.** LCEC's own blog confirms a percentage (more than 90 percent of its territory) but not an absolute customer count, so we have not stated one.

## Sources

- [EIA: Electric Power Annual, Table 11.4, SAIDI Values (Minutes Per Year) of the U.S. Distribution System by State, 2014-2024](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_11_04.html)
- [EIA: Electric Power Annual, Table 11.5, SAIFI Values (Times Per Year) of the U.S. Distribution System by State, 2014-2024](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_11_05.html)
- [NHC Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Ian (AL092022)](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092022_Ian.pdf)
- [NHC Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Nicole (AL172022)](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL172022_Nicole.pdf)
- [NHC Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Idalia (AL102023)](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL102023_Idalia.pdf)
- [NHC Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Debby (AL042024)](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL042024_Debby.pdf)
- [NHC Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Helene (AL092024)](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092024_Helene.pdf)
- [NHC Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Milton (AL142024)](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL142024_Milton.pdf)
- [FPL Newsroom: Hurricane Nicole restoration update, November 11, 2022](https://newsroom.fpl.com/2022-11-11-FPL-restores-service-to-more-than-95-of-customers-impacted-by-Hurricane-Nicole-just-12-hours-after-storm-exits-state)
- [FPL Newsroom: Hurricane Idalia restoration update](https://newsroom.fpl.com/FPL-has-essentially-completed-restoration-to-nearly-200,000-customers-impacted-by-Hurricane-Idalia)
- [FPL Newsroom: Hurricane Milton restoration complete, October 15, 2024](https://newsroom.fpl.com/FPL-essentially-completes-restoration-following-Hurricane-Milton)
- [Duke Energy: Hurricane Idalia restoration update](https://news.duke-energy.com/releases/duke-energy-plans-to-restore-power-to-95-of-customers-affected-by-hurricane-idalia-by-tonight-except-those-in-the-hardest-hit-areas)
- [Duke Energy: Hurricane Debby restoration update](https://news.duke-energy.com/releases/duke-energy-crews-begin-power-restoration-following-hurricane-debby-establish-estimated-time-of-restoration-for-pinellas-and-pasco-counties)
- [Duke Energy: Hurricane Helene restoration complete](https://news.duke-energy.com/releases/duke-energy-florida-completes-restoration-of-approximately-800-000-hurricane-helene-power-outages-remains-committed-to-restoring-the-vitality-of-impacted-communities)
- [Duke Energy: Hurricane Milton restoration update](https://news.duke-energy.com/releases/duke-energy-florida-restores-power-for-several-counties-impacted-by-hurricane-milton-outages-decrease-from-1-million-to-approximately-105-000)
- [Tampa Electric: Hurricane Milton restoration milestones](https://www.tampaelectric.com/mediacenter/2024/Tampa-Electric-Achieving-Power-Restoration-Milestones-After-Hurricane-Milton/)
- [LCEC: Widespread power outages, Hurricane Ian damage assessment](https://www.lcec.net/blog/widespread-power-outages-damage-assessment-today/)
- [Florida Public Service Commission: Annual Status Report on Storm Protection Plan Activities of Florida Investor-Owned Utilities, November 2025](https://www.floridapsc.com/pscfiles/website-files/PDF/Utilities/Electricgas/StormProtectionPlans/2024/Annual%20Status%20Report%20on%20Storm%20Protection%20Plan%20Activities%20of%20Florida%20Investor-Owned%20Utilities.pdf)
- [NERC: Florida Reliability Coordinating Council Reliability Coordinator Reliability Plan v.6](https://www.nerc.com/globalassets/who-we-are/standing-committees/rstc/rtos/frcc-rc-reliability-plan-v.6.pdf)