Nearly 3 million Florida residences were left without power early Thursday after Hurricane Milton slammed into the state.
Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm on Florida’s Gulf Coast near Siesta Key in Sarasota County just after 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
The National Hurricane Center warned of a “life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds, and flooding rains” as Milton approached.
By Thursday morning, more than 2.9 million people were experiencing power outages, according to PowerOutage.us, a service that tracks disruptions.
In Hillsborough County alone, more than 500,000 outages were logged. At the time of writing, it was the worst-affected area.
In Sarasota County, there were 236, 440 outages, and in neighboring Manatee County, 223,989. Lee County recorded almost 269,000 outages, and Polk County more than 190,000. In Pinellas County, 386,495 outages were recorded.
There were a further 91,997 in Charlotte County and 81,169 in Collier County.
In total, significant disruptions to services were recorded in more than 30 Florida counties.
A 5 a.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center said Milton was moving off Florida’s eastern coast but was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall in east central Florida.
One social media user in Tampa Bay described “watching power go out over chunks of the city.”
Multiple casualties were reported in the hours after the storm hit the Sunshine State.
Law enforcement officials reported an unconfirmed number of fatalities related to the storm in Lakewood Park. St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF-TV that there were deaths in Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, though the exact number was not yet known.
“We are going through the rubble,” Pearson told the station, adding: “It’s devastating. There are no words to describe it.”
The National Water Prediction Service forecast that several rivers in and around the Tampa Bay area would reach major flooding status.
Multiple Florida rivers were expected to break water level records, including these:
- Hillsborough River near Zephyrhills, record 15.3 feet in 1960, forecast to reach 16.3 feet
- Cypress Creek at Worthington Gardens, record 13.8 feet in 2004, forecast to reach 15 feet
- Hillsborough River at Morris Bridge, record 34.7 feet in 2017, forecast to reach 35.2 feet
Milton’s arrival comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene’s deadly assault on the Southeastern U.S.—causing, according to the Associated Press, more than 230 fatalities.
Helene was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region, the Weather Channel reported.
Millions of Americans were still without power days after Helene hit, including those in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia.
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