(Reuters) – More than 84,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina were still without power on Thursday in the wake of Hurricane Florence which hit the state’s coast on Sept. 14, according to local power companies.
FILE PHOTO: Duke Energy crews work to restore power following Hurricane Florence, now downgraded to a tropical depression, in Rocky Point, North Carolina, U.S., September 17, 2018. REUTERS/Ernest Scheyder
That figure is down from a peak of 2.1 million total customers who were affected after the storm passed through several Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states over the past week.
Flooding across the Carolinas was expected to worsen over the next couple of days, forecasters said. Officials say 36 people have been killed.
Duke Energy Corp (DUK.N), the biggest utility in the area with over 4 million customers, said it has restored power to more than 1.6 million of its nearly 1.7 million customers affected by the storm.
The company said it expects to restore service to most customers by Sept. 26.
Reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York and Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese