Hurricane Milton slammed into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday after cutting a destructive path across Florida, spawning tornadoes, killing at least 10 people and leaving millions without power, but the storm did not stop the storm from causing a devastating surge in seawater. Did not trigger, as was feared.
Governor Ron DeSantis said the state had averted “the worst-case scenario”, although he cautioned that the damage was still significant. The Tampa Bay area appeared to bypass the storm that had prompted the most severe warnings.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a White House briefing that the government has reports of at least 10 deaths from Milton that appear to have been caused by the tornado.
In St. Lucie County, on Florida’s east coast, a group of tornadoes killed five people, including at least two at Spanish Lakes senior living communities, county spokesman Eric Gill said. Search and rescue teams there are combing hard-hit areas, including mobile-home parks.
DeSantis said 19 tornadoes had been confirmed in Florida as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, the same time Milton made landfall. The National Weather Service said about 45 tornadoes were reported throughout the day, most of which were in central and eastern parts of the state.
More than 3 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. At least some people were already waiting for power to be restored after Hurricane Helene struck the area two weeks ago.
Milton tore off the fabric roof of Tropicana Field, the stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg, but no injuries were reported. The ballpark was a staging ground for responders, with thousands of cots set up on the field.
Video footage from local news shows that in the Tampa area, the storm downed trees, dumped debris on roads and downed power lines. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said at a morning news conference that some areas were flooded, but the extent of the damage would not be known until crews could assess the destruction.
Steven Cole Smith, a 71-year-old automotive writer and editor who lives in Tampa, about seven miles (11 km) from the Gulf Coast, rode out the storm with his wife. He said the wind shook the windows so hard he thought they would break.
“We really had nowhere else to go,” Smith said of their decision not to follow evacuation orders. He owns a home in central Florida, but he said the forecast in that area is just as bad as where he was living.
“I spent yesterday looking for supplies, fuel for the generators and everything we need,” he said. “I have a chainsaw too.”
Fortunately, Tampa escaped a direct hit, he said.
Ken Wood, 58, a state ferryboat operator in Pinellas County, from his Dunedin home on Florida’s Gulf Coast with his 16-year-old cat Andy, after making the “dramatic” mistake of riding out Hurricane Helene in his mobile home two weeks ago Ran away. ,
They heeded evacuation orders and headed north, but only got as far as a hotel about an hour’s drive away when they decided it was no longer safe to remain on the roads.
“It was very intense, but Andy slept through it all,” he told Reuters by telephone.
He is worried about his home but was waiting for official word that the roads were clear before returning. Helen destroyed about a third of her neighborhood, and the streets were still littered with debris that could have been wind-driven shells.
‘temporary’
Tampa Police Chief Lee Berkow said emergency crews responded to dozens of calls for help overnight, including rescuing 15 people after a tree fell on top of a home.
Winds topple a large construction crane in St. Petersburg, causing it to crash on a deserted road.
The state was still at risk of river flooding after up to 18 inches (457 mm) of rain fell. Castor said Thursday morning that officials were waiting for the rivers to peak, but so far water levels were at or below the level of Hurricane Helene two weeks ago.
Most of the serious damage so far has been caused by tornadoes, according to Dean Criswell, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who was in Tallahassee on Thursday.
“Evacuation orders saved lives,” he said, noting that more than 90,000 residents went into shelters.
In Fort Myers on the southwest coast, resident Connor Ferrin surveys the debris of his home, which had its roof caved in after the tornado hit and filled with debris and rainwater.
“It all happened instantly, like these windows blew out,” he said. “I grabbed two dogs and ran under my bed and that was it. Maybe a minute total.”
President Joe Biden, who postponed an overseas trip to monitor Milton, spoke to local leaders in Florida on Thursday and pledged the full support of the federal government.
The storm struck Florida’s west coast Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph). While still a dangerous hurricane, Milton weakened to rare Category 5 status as it moved from the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.
The National Hurricane Center said Milton moved toward land and intensified into a Category 1 hurricane with peak winds of 85 mph (145 kph) as it approached the peninsula’s east coast. By Thursday morning, the storm was moving away from the Florida Atlantic coast after devastating communities along the eastern coastline.
The storm made landfall in Siesta Key, a barrier island town of about 5,400 people near Sarasota, about 60 miles (100 km) south of Tampa Bay.
In the state already hit by Hurricane Helene, nearly 2 million people were ordered to evacuate ahead of Milton’s arrival, and millions more live in the storm’s path. Both storms are expected to cause billions of dollars in damage.
Florida airports, including Tampa, Palm Beach and St. Pete-Clearwater, remained closed Thursday except for emergency flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)