To find the best estimate of the percentage of the entire state experiencing power outages based on the given percentages from three counties, we can use a weighted average approach. However, we need to know how many counties each of those percentages applies to in order to accurately calculate the overall percentage of outages in the state.
Let's assume that the percentages you provided correspond to equal numbers of counties within those three groups, which may not reflect reality accurately. However, without more details on the number of counties reporting each percentage, we can still compute a rough average for the given outage percentages.
Given the percentages:
- 3%
- 7%
- 12%
We can simply average these values: \[ \text{Average percentage} = \frac{3% + 7% + 12%}{3} = \frac{22%}{3} \approx 7.33% \]
Rounding this to a feasible estimate, 7.3% would be a reasonable single estimate of the total state outage percentage based on equal distribution. This matches one of your options.
Therefore, the best estimate of the percentage of the state that has a power outage is 7.3%.