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Tuesday, June 10, 2025

More than 3 million without power after Hurricane Milton slams Florida

by

Newsdesk
242 days ago
20241010
The roof of Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, appeared to be badly damaged as Hurricane Milton passes Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

The roof of Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, appeared to be badly damaged as Hurricane Milton passes Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Chris Urso

Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton bar­reled in­to the At­lantic Ocean on Thurs­day af­ter plow­ing across Flori­da as a Cat­e­go­ry 3 storm, pound­ing cities with fe­ro­cious winds and rain, whip­ping up a bar­rage of tor­na­does and caus­ing an un­known num­bers of deaths. It com­pound­ed the mis­ery wrought by He­lene while spar­ing Tam­pa a di­rect hit.

The storm tracked to the south in the fi­nal hours and made land­fall Wednes­day night in Sies­ta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilo­me­ters) south of Tam­pa. The sit­u­a­tion in the Tam­pa area was still a ma­jor emer­gency as St. Pe­ters­burg record­ed over 16 inch­es (41 cen­time­ters) of rain, prompt­ing the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice to warn of flash flood­ing there as well as oth­er parts of west­ern and cen­tral Flori­da.

The fab­ric that serves as the roof of Trop­i­cana Field, home of the Tam­pa Bay Rays base­ball team in St. Pe­ters­burg, 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.

Be­fore Mil­ton even made land­fall, tor­na­does touched 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 were killed.

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.

About 90 min­utes af­ter mak­ing land­fall, Mil­ton was down­grad­ed to a Cat­e­go­ry 2 storm. By ear­ly Thurs­day, the hur­ri­cane was a Cat­e­go­ry 1 storm with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of about 85 mph (135 kph) and leav­ing the state near Cape Canaver­al.

But 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 hard-hit Pinel­las and Sara­so­ta coun­ties urged peo­ple to stay off the roads, warn­ing of downed pow­er lines, trees in road­ways and blocked bridges.

“The storm may have passed, but it is still dan­ger­ous to be trav­el­ing this morn­ing,” the Sara­so­ta Coun­ty Sher­iff’s Of­fice said in a so­cial me­dia post.

The storm slammed in­to a re­gion still reel­ing two weeks af­ter Hur­ri­cane He­lene flood­ed streets and homes in west­ern Flori­da and left at least 230 peo­ple dead across the South. 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.

Of­fi­cials had is­sued dire warn­ings to flee or face grim odds of sur­vival. By late af­ter­noon, some of­fi­cials said the time had passed for such ef­forts, sug­gest­ing that peo­ple who stayed be­hind hun­ker down in­stead.

ack­ie Cur­nick said she wres­tled with her de­ci­sion to stay at home in Sara­so­ta, just north of where the storm made land­fall. She and her hus­band start­ed pack­ing Mon­day to evac­u­ate, but they strug­gled to find avail­able ho­tel rooms, and the few they came by were too ex­pen­sive.

With a 2-year-old son and a ba­by girl due Oct. 29, Cur­nick said there were too many unan­swered ques­tions if they got in the car and left: where to sleep, if they’d be able to fill up their gas tank, and if they could even find a safe route out of the state.

Video tak­en dur­ing the storm showed howl­ing winds and sheets of rain lash­ing their glass-en­closed swim­ming pool as her son and their dog watched. Trees shook vi­o­lent­ly.

“The thing is it’s so dif­fi­cult to evac­u­ate in a penin­su­la,” she said ahead of the storm. “In most oth­er states, you can go in any di­rec­tion to get out. In Flori­da, there are on­ly so many roads that take you north or south.”

At a news con­fer­ence in Tal­la­has­see, Gov. Ron De­San­tis de­scribed de­ploy­ment of a wide range of re­sources, in­clud­ing 9,000 Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers from Flori­da and oth­er states; over 50,000 util­i­ty work­ers from as far as Cal­i­for­nia; and high­way pa­trol cars with sirens to es­cort gaso­line tankers to re­plen­ish sup­plies so peo­ple could fill up their tanks be­fore evac­u­at­ing.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there will be fa­tal­i­ties. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” De­San­tis said.

Heavy rain and tor­na­does lashed parts of south­ern Flori­da start­ing Wednes­day morn­ing, with con­di­tions de­te­ri­o­rat­ing through­out the day. Six to 12 inch­es (15 to 31 cen­time­ters) of rain, with up to 18 inch­es (46 cen­time­ters) in some places, was ex­pect­ed well in­land, bring­ing the risk of cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing.

One twister touched down Wednes­day morn­ing in the light­ly pop­u­lat­ed Ever­glades and crossed In­ter­state 75. An­oth­er ap­par­ent tor­na­do touched down in Fort My­ers, snap­ping tree limbs and tear­ing a gas sta­tion’s canopy to shreds.

Au­thor­i­ties is­sued manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion or­ders across 15 Flori­da coun­ties with a to­tal pop­u­la­tion of about 7.2 mil­lion peo­ple. By ear­ly af­ter­noon, air­lines had can­celed about 1,900 flights. Sea­World was closed all day Wednes­day, and Walt Dis­ney World and Uni­ver­sal Or­lan­do shut down in the af­ter­noon.

More than 60% of gas sta­tions in Tam­pa and St. Pe­ters­burg were out of gas Wednes­day af­ter­noon, ac­cord­ing to Gas­Bud­dy. De­San­tis said the state’s over­all sup­ply was fine, and high­way pa­trol of­fi­cers were es­cort­ing tanker trucks to re­plen­ish the sup­ply.

Of­fi­cials warned that any­one stay­ing be­hind must fend for them­selves, be­cause first re­spon­ders were not ex­pect­ed to risk their lives at­tempt­ing res­cues at the height of the storm.

St. Pe­ters­burg May­or Ken Welch told res­i­dents to ex­pect long pow­er out­ages and the pos­si­ble shut­down of the sew­er sys­tem.

In Char­lotte Har­bor, about 100 miles (160 kilo­me­ters) south of Tam­pa, clouds swirled and winds gust­ed as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and oth­er be­long­ings. Two weeks ago, He­lene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 me­ters) of wa­ter to the neigh­bor­hood, and its streets re­main filled with wa­ter­logged fur­ni­ture, torn-out dry­wall and oth­er de­bris.

Parks, an au­to tech­ni­cian, planned to flee to his daugh­ter’s home in­land and said his room­mate al­ready left.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t com­ing back,” he said.

TAM­PA, Fla. (AP)

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