Hurricane Irma has caused a record number of power outages affecting Florida Power & Light Co. customers.

As of midnight Sunday, 3.98 million of FPL's 4.90 million customers were affected by outages. Of those, 412,710 customers had their power restored by midnight.

That breaks the record of 3.24 million customers affected during Hurricane Wilma in 2005, according to FPL spokesman Bill Orlove.

In Brevard County, as of 9 a.m. Monday (Sept. 11), 260,600 of FPL's 307,600 customers were affected by outages. Of those, 29,850 customers had their power restored by midnight.

More:Power outages across Florida

"This truly is a storm that impacted all our entire service area," which encompasses 35 counties on both the east and west coasts of Florida. "This is a ferocious storm. Everybody in the state has felt the impact of Irma."

FPL also has a record-large crew poised to begin power restoration when the storm ends. More than 17,000 FPL workers, employees of other utilities and contractors from 30 states will work on power restoration. They will be deployed from 20 staging sites after winds drop below 35 mph.

But restoration will take some time.

Orlove said "it's too early to speculate" how long that work will take "until we're able to get eyes on the ground after the storm clears."

But, he added, for some in areas where a rebuilding of the system is needed, "it may take weeks."

Berman is government editor at FLORIDA TODAY.

Contact Berman at 321-242-3649

or dberman@floridatoday.com.

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