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.
Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, in St. Lucie County on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed. St. Lucie officials confirmed at least four deaths from tornadoes that preceded landfall.
As dawn broke Thursday, officials repeated that the danger had not passed: Storm surge remained a concern in many parts of Florida and tropical storm warnings were in place for much of the east-central coast. Officials in the hard-hit counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.
“We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out,” Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, said on Facebook.
Home of MLB’s Rays damaged
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.
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 8 a.m. ET on Thursday, the the storm was packing up winds of up to 140 kilometres per hour and was 120 kilometres east-northeast of Cape Canaveral, on the state’s east coast.
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.
