The Internet is full of photos and videos of the chaos, flooding and destruction brought by Hurricane Milton in Florida.
The Category 3 storm hit the coast on Wednesday, before being downgraded to a Category 2 storm, bringing devastation with winds of more than 100 miles per hour and damaging storm surge to densely populated areas along Florida’s Gulf Coast, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Fort Myers.
Milton eventually made landfall on Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 70 miles south of Tampa, where it was initially forecast to make landfall.
But the Tampa area was still affected, with St. Petersburg recording more than 16 inches of rain, according to the Associated Press.
A clip posted by Conlustro Research on X, formerly Twitter, shows torrential rain lashing the city, with the force of the wind visible as trees and streetlights are blown back and forth.
BREAKING HURRICANE MILTON- ST PETERSBURG
St. Petersburg has received an unpleasant amount of rain – more than 16″ in the last 24 hours… but mainly:
5.09″ drop between 8 and 9p only, a 1-in-1,000 year amount
Flash flood emergency for Tampa Bay area up to 230a.
Some 24 hour rain… pic.twitter.com/3XLuaDnvIZ– Conlustro Research (@ConlustroR) October 10, 2024
Another photo, shared by engineer Matt Dursh, shows the crane collapsing into what he, and others on social media, identified as Tampa Bay Times building.
Storm-chaser Jeff Piotrowski posted the same scene but from the ground, showing “catastrophic” damage.
NewsNation senior national reporter Brian Entin shared videos refers to the water “sucked out of Tampa Bay by Milton.”
Meanwhile, the roof of Tropicana Field, the baseball stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays, in St.
“OMG. We all gasped when we saw this from our reporter. The fabric on the roof of Tropicana Field has been shredded,” Jason Adams, a meteorologist at WFTS in Tampa, sent in X, alongside a videos.
Deaths have been reported at the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce but the number is still unclear.
Tornadoes hit parts of Florida before Milton even made landfall, with about 125 homes, many of them mobile homes for senior citizens, destroyed before the hurricane made landfall, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, said.
Hurricane Milton wreaked havoc after plowing through Florida as a Category 3 storm.
It battered cities with winds of more than 100mph after producing a tornado wave and knocking out power to 2,936,418 homes and businesses across the country.
Stay safe 🙏
Praying for Florida 🙏… https://t.co/D9NiIF6DkX pic.twitter.com/qwfvR2tGsb– World Crisis Tracker (@WorldCrisi19621) October 10, 2024
More than 3 million homes and businesses had lost power in Florida by late Wednesday, according to PowerOutages.us.
People have been warned of life-threatening storm surges, hurricanes, especially during high winds, and heavy rains.
At least 15 counties in Florida are under mandatory evacuation orders, affecting about 7.2 million people.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said during a press conference in Tallahassee that 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states have been deployed, along with more than 50,000 utility workers and highway patrol cars prepared to escort gasoline tankers to ensure that gas is available. for evacuees.
“Unfortunately, there will be casualties. I don’t think there is any way,” he said.
AP
Milton reached Category 5 status twice when it drew energy from warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico before weakening.
“Intensity guidance and relatively fast forward speed from Milton indicate that the system will maintain hurricane intensity as it crosses Florida,” the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters expect Milton to “gradually roll down the Atlantic, disappearing after 96 hours.”
