Thousands of customers of both Glades Electric Cooperative and Progress Energy utilities were without power due to Tropical Storm Fay on Tuesday.
Scott Sutton, spokesman for Progress Energy said Tuesday afternoon that there were 650 customers without power but the company had already restored about 2,000 customers that day.
Crews were mobilized in the field, Sutton said.
"We brought in crews from our sister utility in the Carolinas," he said. He was glad that Fay had turned out to be a relatively minor event.
It was a good chance for the company to dust off its plans, he said.
Paul McGehee, business development manager with Glades Electric Cooperative, was not as enthusiastic as he had been earlier in the day.
Highlands County customers' outages had jumped from 13 at about 10 a.m. to 1,413 by 4 p.m., while Hendry County had 1,074 customers without power and Glades had 1,820.
Earlier in the day Glades had four customers without power and Hendry had 10.
McGehee said at one point Glades crews had to stop working due to 80 mph wind gusts and 50 to 60 mph sustained winds in the Moore Haven area.
"The storm actually organized and gathered strength as it crossed land, which is really unusual," he said.
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