Hurricane Milton was yesterday moving off the coast of eastern Florida into the Atlantic after making landfall near Tampa with tree-snapping winds and heavy rain, causing widespread flooding and knocking out power for millions.
Milton came ashore near Siesta Key as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday evening and at press time, was packing winds of 140kph, the US National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory.
Damaging winds were lashing central Florida and flash flood emergencies were in effect, as Milton tracks over the Atlantic ocean.
Photo: AFP
The hurricane shredded the roof of Tropicana Field, a domed stadium in St Petersburg and the home of Major League Baseball team the Tampa Bay Rays, ABC reported.
The storm has also knocked out power for more than 3 million homes and businesses in Florida, according to PowerOutage.us.
Milton came ashore south of where Hurricane Helene — which killed at least 230 people — struck Florida’s west coast two weeks ago. The US mainland has been hit by five hurricanes so far this year, including Beryl, which battered Houston, Texas, in July and knocked out power to millions of homes and businesses.
Tampa Bay could see a storm surge of as much as 1.5m, while Anna Maria Island could see 2.1m of water, an advisory from the hurricane center said at 2am New York time. Milton could also bring as much as 46cm of rain on some areas, the agency said.
“This rainfall will continue to bring the risk of catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with moderate to major river flooding,” agency forecasters wrote in their outlook.
Tropical storm conditions would spread to the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, they added.
US President Joe Biden was briefed by homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and US Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell on the initial impacts of the hurricane on the Florida Peninsula, a White House statement said.
Milton’s top winds have slowed, with the hurricane now equivalent to a Category 1.
The hurricane was expected to cause damages and losses in a range from US$60 billion to US$75 billion, a “major catastrophe” for the region, Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler for Enki Research, said before the storm made landfall.
The reduction in the storm’s intensity to Category 3 as it made landfall might significantly cut insured losses, Bloomberg Intelligence insurance analyst Charles Graham said.
Even as far south as Naples more than 160km from where Milton made landfall, major flooding was recorded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Duke Energy Florida president Melissa Seixas said Milton “is our worst fears come true.”
The company had just replaced hundreds of transformers destroyed by Helene two weeks ago.
“We had about 24 hours between the final restoration of Helene and preparing for this storm,” she said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a Wednesday briefing that the state has more than 50,000 workers on standby, ready to start power restoration as soon as it is safe.
Biden said the federal government stood ready to deploy military personnel to aid recovery efforts.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS