Electricity providers expect Hurricane Helene to cause power outages in Manatee County and Southwest Florida as the storm impacts the Gulf Coast this week.
Cell service could go down, too.
There are multiple resources for Manatee residents to check power and cell phone outages.
Check power outages in Bradenton
Florida Power & Light and Peace River Electric Cooperative are Manatee County’s electricity providers. Both providers have online maps that show local outages in real-time. The maps also show how widespread the outage is and when the power might return.
Affected areas are labeled on the maps, which can be clicked on to find out more information such as the cause, how many customers were impacted and estimated restoration time.
FPL services more than 210,000 in Manatee County, while Peace River has about 46,000 customers.
To check FPL’s outage map, visit www.FPLMaps.com , and to check Peace River’s outage map, visit Members.PRECO.CoOP/maps/outagewebmap/ .
Downed power lines can be reported to FPL at 1-866-263-9186 .