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Hurricane Michael's energy toll

Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Hurricane Michael made landfall in Mexico Beach, Fla., as a high-end Category 4 storm early Wednesday afternoon, killing at least two people and causing catastrophic damage.

The big picture: It's the strongest such storm on record to hit the Florida Panhandle and one of the strongest ever to strike the continental U.S. — and it severely impacted Florida's electricity grid and oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

  • It struck with the third-lowest atmospheric pressure of any storm ever to hit the continental U.S. (919 millibars), and was among the five strongest storms by sustained winds at landfall (155 mph).

Electricity losses: As of 6am this morning, there were 359,306 accounts without power, according to Florida state officials.

  • Per CNN, add that to losses in Georgia and Alabama, and the total number of customers without power is over 500,000.

Oil-and-gas: Evacuations of Gulf of Mexico oil-and-gas platforms led to 42% of Gulf oil production and 32% of gas production being shut-in as of midday yesterday, according to the Interior Department.

  • However, the storm path was east of most offshore energy infrastructure and, as S&P Global Platts noted, that production should be restored pretty fast.

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Hurricane Michael