Factbox: Over 1.5 million customers without power on U.S. East Coast after Michael

(Reuters) - More than 1.5 million homes and businesses on the U.S. East Coast were without power on Friday as Hurricane Michael and its remnants marched from Florida to Virginia, according to local power companies. Some customers in the hardest hit parts of Florida may have to wait weeks for the power to be restored, the utilities said. In total, Michael caused around 2.5 million outages since hitting the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (250 kilometers per hour). Southern Co's Gulf Power unit said it could take weeks to restore power in the hardest hit parts of Florida like the Panama City area. In Georgia, Southern's Georgia Power unit said it expects to restore service to most customers over the next couple of days with those in the hardest hit areas by Oct. 16. Duke Energy Corp said it has around 6,000 workers restoring service in the Carolinas were an estimated 670,000 customers lost power at some point during the storm. Duke currently has about 434,000 customers without power. The company said some outages could take several days to repair. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Frances Kerry)