Demand for electricity across the bitterly cold Sunshine State has shattered Florida Power and Light's all-time record.

"This morning, we set a new all-time record peak load on the electrical system, with customers drawing more than 23,500 megawatt-hours of power," said Sarah Marmion, FPL spokeswoman. "This breaks FPL's previous peak record, which occurred on Aug. 17, 2005."

Peak load that steamy summer day: 22,361 megawatt-hours.

Isolated neighborhood blackouts continue to render some Space Coast residents powerless. As of noon, about 1,600 Brevard County customers lacked electricity, Marmion said.

That number was down from just more than 2,000 customers at 11 a.m.

Indialantic police closed a portion of Fifth Avenue this morning because of a blackout. The affected roadway, which extended from Route A1A to Shannon Avenue, has since reopened, a police dispatcher said.

Marmion said FPL wintertime demand spikes when people get out of bed in the morning and turn up their thermostats.

"The heating strips require two to three times more energy to work than the air conditioning does. It's a big draw that's hitting the system at a specific time," she said.

FPL advises customers to heat their homes at 68 degrees or cooler with the thermostat fan switch on "auto."

Customers can report outages at FPL.com/outage or by calling (800) 4OUTAGE.