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.
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