Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, bringing misery to a coast still ravaged by Helene, pounding cities with winds of over 160 km/h after producing a barrage of tornadoes, but sparing Tampa a direct hit.
The storm tracked to the south in its final hours before making landfall in Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 112 kilometres south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St. Petersburg recorded over 41 centimetres of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding.
Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg, appeared badly damaged. The fabric that serves as the domed stadium’s roof was ripped to shreds by the fierce winds. It was not immediately clear if there was damage inside. Multiple cranes were also toppled in the storm, the weather service said.
St. Petersburg residents also could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service.
The storm knocked out power across a large section of Florida, with more than 3 million homes and businesses without power as of early Thursday, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.
“We have lost some life,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, though he wouldn’t say how many people had died.
About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane came ashore, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Floods expected inland
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. By late Wednesday, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of about 165 km/h and storm surge warnings were in effect for parts of Florida’s Gulf and Atlantic coastlines.
Heavy rains were also expected to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida Peninsula as a hurricane, set to eventually emerge in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday. It is expected to impact the heavily populated Orlando area.
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Earlier Wednesday, multiple tornadoes spawned by the hurricane tore across Florida, the twisters acting as a dangerous harbinger of Milton’s approach. Videos posted to social media sites showed large funnel clouds over neighbourhoods in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the state.
St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson posted a video to Facebook showing a 10,000-square-foot iron building that had been twisted into a crumpled heap by a tornado. The structure was where the sheriff’s office kept its patrol cars, but luckily no one was inside when it fell, Pearson said.
Milton slammed into a Florida region still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which two weeks ago caused heavy damage to beach communities. Storm surge flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South, including a dozen people in seaside Pinellas County alone.
In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage.
