Sept 26 (Reuters) - More than 100,000 homes and businesses in Florida

were without power on Thursday as hurricane Helene looked poised to make

landfall in the state's Big Bend region, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Hurricane Helene churned toward Florida's Panhandle region, bringing the

threat of a potentially deadly storm surge to much of the coastline.

Helene was forecast to continue gaining power on its northward path toward

the Big Bend region. It was expected to make landfall this evening, possibly as

a Category 4 storm with sustained winds in excess of 130 mph (209 kph).

The utility company with the largest number of customers affected was

Florida Power & Light Company , which had 88,722 clients without

power.

It was followed by Tampa Electric , with 7,080 customers cut off

in the state.

Here are the major outages by utility in Florida:

Power Companies Outages

Florida Power & Light Company 88,722

Tampa Electric 7,080

Lee County Electric Coop 4,979

Duke Energy ( DUK ) 4,641

Withlacoochee River Electric Coop 1,499

Total 106,921