Hurricane Milton ripped across Florida overnight, lashing cities across the state with torrential rain and savage winds before stirring up a series of tornadoes that have so far left four people dead and entire communities reeling.
The storm slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 Hurricane on Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph near Siesta Key, a barrier island next to Sarasota, according to the National Hurricane Center. From there, Milton quickly weakened to a Category 1 storm as it marched across the Sunshine State, though it still wrought a fair amount of havoc before making its way back over the ocean.
The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce on Florida’s Atlantic Coast was hit particularly hard. Four people were killed in tornadoes there, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said. Scores of houses were also destroyed, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
The roof panels of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, were ripped away in Milton’s fury, leaving several holes in the dome of the stadium. Milton also drenched the city with some 16 inches of rain. In the course of just three hours, St. Petersburg experienced more precipitation than the three-month average rainfall.
Tampa was similarly pounded with rain, even though the storm did not make landfall there as experts feared it would.
Residents across both cities were urged to continue to shelter-in-place on Thursday as “extremely dangerous hurricane-force winds” continued to terrorize the area, the NHC said.
Farther south in Lee County, the local sheriff’s office warned of localized flooding and in Venice Beach, officials reported dangerous storm surge, which peaked at around seven feet.
What’s more, Milton knocked out power for an estimated 3.3 million people across parts of Florida’s west coast, including in Hardee County, where over 9,000 customers were in the dark and Highlands County, where nearly 90% of customers were without electricity.
Gov. Ron DeSantis during an early morning press conference in Tallahassee told reporters the worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota County, where it measured between 8 to 10 feet. He told CNBC that Milton also triggered storm surges “in places like Daytona Beach and Saint Augustine, and then even in the heart of Florida, like Orlando, there was so much rain on the northern side of this storm that we are having some flooding events.”
DeSantis added: “We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses. The storm was significant but, thankfully, this was not the worst-case scenario.”
As 8 a.m., Milton’s center is about 50 miles off Florida’s Atlantic coast, but its rain, wind and storm surge are ongoing. A series of warnings have been lifted since the hurricane’s departure, but authorities have warned residents to act with caution and remain aware.
Milton still has winds of 85 mph and they will continue to lash Florida for hours. There is also still the danger of storm surge along the east coast of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina Thursday morning.
With News Wire Services
