Milton entered the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday after crossing Florida like a hurricane category 3, hitting cities with powerful winds and intense downpours. The meteor caused at least four deaths and aggravated the havoc caused by Helene, although it avoided the direct impact on tampa.
The meteor turned south in recent hours and made landfall Wednesday night on Siesta Key, about 112 kilometers (about 70 miles) south of tampa. The situation in the area of tampa was still great emergency as St. Petersburg recorded 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of possible floods sudden events both there and in other parts of the western and central parts of the state.
At dawn on Thursday, authorities emphasized that the danger has not happened: the surge cyclonic was still worrying in many parts of the state and there were warnings for tropical storm on much of the central east coast. Officials from Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee counties, hard hit by the hurricaneasked the population not to go out on the road and reported the fall of electrical cables and trees on the roads, as well as bridges cut and floods.
“We’ll let you know when it’s safe to go out,” said Chad Chronister, sheriff of Hillsborough County, where he is located. tampaon Facebook.
Although the lethal surge cyclonic that was predicted for tampa seems not to have materialized, the city suffered floods because of the rain. Further south, Lee County police reported floods and localized storm surge and Lorraine Anderson, public information officer for Venice Beach, told CNN that there was an estimated surge cyclonic between 1.8 and 2 meters (between 6 and 7 feet), well below the 4.5 meters (15 feet) that were feared.
The storm cut off the electrical supply across much of the state and left more than 3.2 million homes and businesses without power, according to poweroutage.us, which monitors blackouts.
Tropicana Fieldthe Rays stadium tampa MLB Bay, located in St. Petersburg, suffered damage serious. The canvas that serves as a dome on the building was left in tatters by the powerful winds. At the moment it was unknown if there were damage inside the infrastructure. The meteor also knocked down several cranes, according to the meteorological service.
Hotel where he is awaiting Hurricane Milton with other colleagues, on October 9, 2024, in Tampa, Florida.” class=”w-full object-cover”/>
Residents in the city were left without running water after a main pipe break forced authorities to cut off service. The mayor, Ken Welch, had warned of the possibility of large blackouts and the closure of sanitation.
Even before Milton made landfall, the strong rains and the tornadoes They hit part of the south of Florida on Wednesday morning, and the situation worsened as the hours passed. A tornado touched down in the sparsely populated Everglades area and crossed Interstate 75. In Fort Myers, another possible tornado snapped tree branches and ripped off the cover of a gas station.
The Spanish Lakes Country Club, near Fort Pierce, on the Atlantic coast of Floridawas especially affected, with housing destroyed and several dead.
At least four people died from tornadoes registered in the area, as announced by the St. Lucie County Police Chief’s Office.
About 125 housing were destroyed before the storm made landfall, many of them mobile homes in senior living communities, said Kevin Guthrie, director of the Emergency Management Division of Florida.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton weakened to hurricane category 2. In the early hours of Thursday, the meteor, now category 1, had winds sustained maximums that were around 135 kilometers per hour and left the region near Cape Canaveral.
He danger has not happened
The surge cyclonic was still worrying in many parts of the state and there were warnings for tropical storm on much of the central east coast. Authorities in Pinellas and Sarasota counties, greatly affected by the hurricanethey asked the population not to go out on the road and reported the fall of electrical cables and trees on the roads, as well as cut bridges.
“The storm may have passed, but it is still dangerous to Travel this morning,” the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post.
Milton whipped a part of Florida that is still recovering from the passing of Hurricane Helenewhich flooded streets and housing in the west of Florida and claimed the lives of at least 230 people across the south. In many coastal areas, municipal authorities rushed to remove and dispose of debris before the winds and the waves of the new storm could sweep them away and aggravate the damage.
The authorities issued direct warnings to evacuate the area or, failing that, face scarce chances of survival.
- “It’s over, folks,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director for Pinellas County, located on the peninsula that forms the Bay of tampa. “(For) those who were scourged by the hurricane Helenethis is going to be a knockout. “They need to leave here and they need to leave now.”
But by late afternoon, some officials said the time to flee was up and suggested that those who remained hunker down wherever they were. At night, some counties announced the suspension of emergency services. At a news conference in Tallahassee, Governor Ron DeSantis explained that a wide range of resources were mobilized, including 9,000 troops from the National guard of Florida and from other states; more than 50,000 public service workers from as far away as California and highway patrols who escorted tanker trucks to supply gas stations and allow people to fill their tanks before leaving.
“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. “I don’t think there’s any way around it,” he said. DeSantis.
