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Utilities Overcome Power Outages From Sunday's Storms

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 8, 2008

TAMPA - TAMPA - Tampa Electric Co. finished restoring power Monday to 600 customers still without electricity after Sunday's violent storms.

The bulk of the customers were in a swath of western Hillsborough County extending from the Carrollwood and Lutz area south to the inner Bay neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, Progress Energy restored power to the 2,000-plus customers in Pinellas and Pasco counties affected by Sunday's thunderstorms, company spokeswoman Sarah Varga said.

Rick Morera, spokesman for TECO, said that at the height of the outages, roughly 10,000 TECO customers lost power in western Hillsborough County.

That number was cut to 4,500 by 10 p.m. Sunday and was 600 Monday morning, he said.

In Hernando County, the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative had restored power to all but a few customers by Monday afternoon, spokesman David Lambert said.

About 2,600 customers went without power Sunday afternoon while workers repaired a circuit switcher that was damaged by lightning.

Some sections of Florida were hit with more than 3 inches of rain during Sunday's storms, including Naples and areas throughout Marion and Alachua counties, said National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Close. Tampa was pelted with golf-ball-size hail, and a flood advisory was issued for parts of Pinellas County.

"This is your typical summer season," Close said. "We have a lot of sea breeze, and when that happens, storms pop up, the air spreads out - and that causes more."

Forecasters have predicted wetter-than-normal conditions for today.

Information from Hernando Today reporter Tony Holt and The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson

@tampatrib.com.

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