Data & history
Tampa Bay power outage history
Tampa Bay spent decades dodging the direct hit — until 2024. Between a coast that draws hurricanes, 80+ thunderstorm days a year, and two utilities (TECO and Duke) stretched thin, here’s the record of the storms that have taken the lights out across the bay, and why standby generators are surging from the city to the suburbs.
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2024
Hurricane Milton
Came ashore just south of the bay in October and took the grid apart — roughly 600,000 Tampa Electric customers lost power (about 70% of them), with more than 3 million out across Florida and restoration measured in a week. Uprooted trees and debris drove most of the outages.
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2024
Hurricane Helene
Two weeks before Milton, Helene shoved a record surge up Tampa Bay and swamped the Pinellas coast — St. Pete Beach, Shore Acres, and the barrier islands took feet of saltwater, and hundreds of thousands lost power across the region.
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2017
Hurricane Irma
Raked the length of Florida and knocked out power to millions statewide. Tampa Bay dodged the worst of the wind but still saw widespread, days-long outages across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco.
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2004
Hurricane Charley
Forecast to hit Tampa Bay head-on, triggering a massive evacuation — then veered east at the last hour into Punta Gorda. The near-miss is exactly why the bay stopped assuming it would keep getting lucky.
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1985
Hurricane Elena
Stalled offshore for days over the Labor Day weekend, forcing repeated evacuations of the Gulf coast and leaving lasting power and property damage before finally moving away.
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1921
Tampa Bay Hurricane
The last major hurricane to score a direct hit on Tampa Bay — a Category 3 that pushed an 11-foot surge into the bay. A century on, forecasters still call the metro overdue for a repeat.
Figures compiled from Tampa Electric and Duke Energy restoration reports, NOAA/National Hurricane Center summaries, and local news coverage. Impacts are regional approximations; the takeaway is the pattern — repeated, large-scale, slow-to-clear outages. Media may cite this page with attribution.
That pattern is the reason we exist: do you need a standby generator? See the Tampa Bay hub or your city page for local detail.
Don’t ride out the next one in the dark
Get a free, no-pressure quote from a vetted installer across Tampa Bay — or call now to talk it through.