COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – As Hurricane Helene moves north, bringing gusty winds and heavy rain to South Carolina, several counties reported weather-related power outages Friday morning.

According to Bluefire Studios’ outage map, over 533,000 South Carolinians are without power as of about 6 a.m. The most severe outages were reported in the state’s southernmost counties, with about 64,000 outages in Aiken County and about 30,000 in Charleston and Greenville counties.

About 85% of electricity customers in Saluda County lost power Friday morning. About 80% of registered electric customers in Jasper, Colleton, Hampton and Edgefield counties also experienced outages.

Current outages

While the outages are spread across the Palmetto State, over 100,000 energy customers in the Midlands are also without power.

The outages in the Midlands are spread across the region, with Richland and Lexington counties having the highest numbers as of about 5 a.m

Richland County is reporting over 50,000 outages as of early Friday morning, most of which are Dominion Energy customers. This is about 22% of the registered users in the district.

Lexington County is also experiencing a power outage affecting over 68,000 customers, representing approximately 41% of all registered customers in the county. Most of these customers also use Dominion Energy.

According to Bluefire, more than 85% of residents in Saluda County experienced a power outage Friday morning. Around 6 a.m., over 12,000 outages were logged. Most of those outages came from Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative customers.

Newberry County also had over 6,000 outages reported Friday morning, representing about 55% of all customers recorded.

In Sumter County, more than 7,000 residents are without power as of 6 a.m., most of whom are Duke Energy customers. That’s around 30% of all registered customers for this district.

Orangeburg County also reported more than 10,000 outages early Friday morning, primarily among Orangeburg Public Utilities customers. The 9,000 outages represent nearly a third of all recorded customers in Orangeburg County.

According to the outage map, Calhoun and Fairfield counties reported about 3,000 customers without power around 6 a.m. Friday morning, while Kershaw and Clarendon counties also had over 3,000 outages each.

Traffic cancellations

The city of Lexington released a statement Friday morning saying Helene caused most of the signal lights for the city’s major roads to be without power.

The city administration urges drivers to drive safely and obey traffic rules. If there is an intersection without active signal lights, drivers should consider it a four-way intersection.

Helene made landfall heading toward the Georgia-Tennessee border around 11:20 p.m. Thursday evening with winds of about 85 miles per hour. WIS News 10’s First Alert Weather team has determined that almost all of the precipitation will fall in the Midlands overnight and into Friday morning.

In addition to power outages, various road closures were reported across the Midlands. Many schools and state offices have also announced schedule changes due to the storm.

Click here to learn more about Hurricane Helene in the Midlands.

This story is developing. Check back here for updates.

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