As of Wednesday morning, more than 160,000 homes and businesses across Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas, and California were without power as Hurricane Milton approaches, according to

PowerOutage.us. The Category 5 storm is expected to make landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast late Wednesday, potentially bringing widespread destruction.

Duke Energy, a major utility provider in the Carolinas, reported the highest number of outages, with approximately 63,108 customers still without power in North Carolina. The storm is already proving to be one of the most rapidly intensifying in Atlantic history, growing from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane in under 24 hours, making it the third-fastest intensifying storm on record.

Hurricane Milton is on track to be one of the most destructive storms to hit the region, which is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which struck less than two weeks ago.

"Helene's devastation in the western parts of the Carolinas was unprecedented," said Jason Hollifield, Duke Energy’s storm director for the Carolinas. "While we've made significant progress, challenging work remains in restoring power to the hardest-hit areas."

Milton is following a rare west-to-east path through the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge of 10 feet (3 meters) or more along Florida's Gulf Coast.

Current Power Outages by State:

Total Outages: 163,139

Photo by VIIRS imagery from the NOAA-21 Satellite, Wikimedia commons.