South Carolina has started to feel the force of Hurricane Florence soon after it reached landfall at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina at 7:15 a.m. and by 11 a.m. South Carolina power companies reported nearly 50,000 power outages, mostly around Myrtle Beach and locations just inland.

Horty County, South Carolina, just south of the area of landfall reported the worst conditions claiming about 80 percent of the outage total.

Soon after reports from the state’s northeast corner called attention to 4,500 people without power in Dillion and Marion counties.

The route of the hurricane will make it difficult for crews from the various power companies to repair power lines suggesting that residents will have to wait long than usual for the power to be restored. According to the utilities, crews cannot use bucket trucks to start repairs until winds drop below tropical storm force. South Carolina has been forecast to receive overwhelming amounts of rain that could loosen soil and the constant barrage of wind is expected to topple trees making roads impassable.

The strong winds are expected to blow for a day or two, and the storm is predicted to travel slowly, meaning that repair work won’t begin until at least the weekend.

South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G), which supplies electricity from Columbia to Charleston, said that the number of outages would grow throughout the day.

Most outages resulting from the hurricane are in North Carolina. Utilities there reported that more than half a million homes and businesses didn’t have power.

On Thursday, SCE&G was warning that as many as 726,000 customers could be without power by the time the storm passes on. A spokesman for Electric Cooperative of South Carolina predicted that 1.5 million customers should expect delays in restoring power. Duke Energy had warned that 1 million to 3 million households in both North and South Carolina could lose power due to Hurricane Florence.

According to SCE&G, the worst power outage in State history was during Hurricane Hugo, which struck in 1989. Nearly 300,000 households lost power then and it took about three weeks to restore it.

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