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Generac Runs Low on Portable Generators After Storms

A sign indicating generators are sold out at a Home Depot store ahead of Hurricane Milton's expected landfall in St. Petersburg, Florida, US, on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. Milton strengthened into a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane as it bears down on Florida's west coast, where residents have begun to flee inland in a region still recovering from Helene's devastation. (Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Generac Holdings Inc. is running low on portable backup generators after Hurricane Helene and other recent storms knocked out power for millions of Americans.

Many of the company’s portable products sold out after Helene tore through the US Southeast, Generac Chief Executive Officer Aaron Jagdfeld said. 

“The more outages that are occurring and the more they are happening, then the more interest grows in our product,” Jagdfeld said during an interview. 

The company’s stock hit a 52-week high Monday as investors bet the company will see a big boost in sales for its backup power systems from multiple hurricane strikes in the US. Shares rose about 1% in after-hours trading Tuesday.

Hurricane Milton, which has exploded into a major storm in the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to bring widespread outages and damage when it strikes Florida late Wednesday. 

The challenge for Milton will be getting portable products on shelves after the storm passes, Jagdfeld said. “If it’s not there yet, it probably isn’t not going to get there until a couple days after landfall,” he said. 

Generac also sells a home standby generator that is not portable. 

The US has experienced 1.2 billion hours of outages for the first nine months of this year, the highest since 2010, when Generac first started tracking the figure, Jagdfeld said. Generac typically sees $50 to $100 million in additional revenue from major outages like the one caused by Hurricane Helene, he added. 

(Updates with additional information in the penultimate paragraph. An earlier version corrected the headline and first paragraph with description of generator type.)

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