Hurricane Milton churned away from Florida early Thursday as a downgraded Category 1 storm — with those who stayed behind waking to survey the damage as 3 million remain without power and at least two people were killed in tornadoes.
Milton was centered off the state’s Atlantic coastline about 10 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral early Thursday morning with maximum sustained winds of about 85mph — a far cry from the powerful 120 mph gusts that rocked Florida’s Gulf Coast when the then-Category 3 storm made landfall in Siesta Key, a barrier island town off Sarasota, around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The storm brought chaos and destruction to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, with wind gusts exceeding 100 mph and 13-foot storm surges inundating some communities, leaving over 3 million homes and businesses without power still Thursday morning, according to PowerOutages.us.
The damaging storm ripped roofs off of buildings, including at Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays, and about a dozen devastating tornadoes spawned in its wake, killing at least two people in a retirement community in Fort Pierce, officials said.
Thankfully, however, officials in hard-hit Sarasota and Tampa Bay said the storm’s impact was not as bad as they had feared.
“We’ll have storm surge damage but nothing like it could have been. It could have been catastrophic for Tampa Bay,” Mayor Jane Castor said Thursday.
Similarly, Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert told MSNBC the storm’s impact was not as bad on the mainland as expected, but that authorities still had to assess the Barrier Islands.
While there were plenty of power outages, there were no emergency calls from residents, Alpert added.
“That’s really unusual. Nobody called for a rescue. So my sense is they must have evacuated,” she said.
Milton held onto hurricane status as it crossed the Florida peninsula overnight, and was churning northeast at about 18 mph as it headed away from Florida the National Hurricane Center said in an update.
“As Hurricane #Milton continues to move offshore, remain cautious. Dangerous tropical storm force winds, flooding & storm surge are impacting the East Coast & Central FL throughout the morning. Avoid flooded areas at all costs & continue to follow all weather alerts,” the state’s division of emergency management warned on X.
Bands of heavy rain and powerful wind gusts continue to pound parts of the state, especially eastern areas where wind gusts were as high as 92 mph along the Atlantic coast, Fox Weather reported.
Flash flood warnings for heavy rainfall are also in effect for parts of central Florida, but Floridians can expect conditions to ease throughout the day as Milton pushes out to sea.
The storm also brought heavy rainfall and storm surges that caused dangerous flooding in some coastal areas.
St. Petersburg, Florida, recorded over five inches of rain in an hour along with a gust to 90 mph in that hour. Meanwhile, parts of downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg flooded after getting over 17 inches of rain.
Water levels rose to over 8 feet near Sarasota close to landfall Wednesday evening while a storm surge of 3 to 6 feet was recorded from Naples to Charlotte Harbor.
Instead of the anticipated 15-foot storm surges, Tampa saw water levels fall by around 5 feet due to blowout winds. Meanwhile, Naples saw a storm surge of nearly 6 feet.
Still, powerful winds rocked both Tampa and St. Petersburg, even tearing the fabric roof off Tropicana Field. The state’s emergency management department had planned to set up a staging site for emergency workers responding to Milton at the stadium.
A flash flood emergency remained in effect for the Tampa Bay area Thursday morning, including the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, the hurricane center said.
With Post wires.
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