ORLANDO, Fla. — More than 200,000 Central Florida utility customers are still in the dark Friday, a day after Hurricane Milton ripped through the state, downing power lines and dumping rain on the region.

But local utilities offered reassurance on Friday afternoon: Help is on the way and many customers can expect their power to come back on this weekend.

Residents reported power outages across the region, from Leesburg to Winter Garden to St. Cloud. In Lake County, a third of customers were still in the dark on Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which collects data from utilities nationwide.

The 200,000 figure includes customers in Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Lake Counties, which together have more than 1.3 million utility customers.

“From downed trees and branches falling on our power lines to storm surge flooding our equipment – which causes almost immediate corrosion – our infrastructure was severely damaged by Hurricane Milton. We’re making repairs where we can, but we anticipate we will need to rebuild in many areas,” said Todd Fountain, Duke Energy Florida storm director, in a press release, adding that crews are working through the night to restore power.

Duke, which serves people throughout the state, reported more than 1 million customers statewide without power after the storm. As of Friday morning, the utility had restored power to nearly 350,000 customers, but more than 850,000 remained without it, according to the press release.

The lights were still off for more than 158,000 Duke Energy customers in Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties, according to poweroutage.us. The company’s press release said customers still without power will receive estimated times of restoration this afternoon.

More than 30,000 Orlando Utilities Commission customers also were without power on Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us, down from a peak of 88,000 immediately after the storm. The utility serves more than 400,000 customers in Orange and Osceola counties.

On Friday, the utility said most customers should get their power back by end-of-day Saturday and service should be restored for all customers, except for those with damage to their personally owned electrical equipment, by the end of Sunday.

The news was even better for residents of Winter Park, which for several years has been relocating its electric grid from utility poles to underground. The city had fewer than 300 storm outages among more than 15,000 customers after Milton and all were restored by Friday morning.

Similarly, Kissimmee Utility Authority was responding to about a dozen remaining outages on Friday morning out of 98,000 customers.

But other areas still are facing steep challenges: The city of Leesburg’s utility reported more than 6,000 outages among its 28,000 customers on Friday morning. The utility did not respond to questions about its timeline for completing repairs.

Mount Dora’s municipal utility, with more than 6,000 customers, also had 1,408 outages remaining on Friday morning. The power provider was expected to announce on Friday a schedule and deadline for restoring power to those customers.

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