Hurricane Milton made landfall in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday after slamming into Florida as a Category 3 storm, pummeling cities with ferocious winds and rain, unleashing a barrage of tornadoes and causing an unknown number of deaths. This compounded the misery caused by Helene, while also sparing Tampa from a direct hit.
The storm tracked south over the past few hours and made landfall Wednesday night in Siesta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency, as St. Petersburg recorded more than 16 inches of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding there as well as in other parts of west and central Florida.
As Thursday dawned, officials repeated that the danger had not passed: The storm remained a concern in many parts of Florida and tropical storm watches were in effect for much of the east-central coast. Officials in the hardest-hit counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.
“We will let you know when it is safe to go out,” Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, where Tampa is located, said on Facebook.
The storm knocked out power across much of Florida, with more than 3.2 million homes and businesses without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
The fabric covering Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, in St. Petersburg, was torn to pieces by strong winds. It was not immediately clear whether there was damage inside. Several cranes were also toppled by the storm, the weather service said.
St. Petersburg residents were also no longer able to get water from household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service. Mayor Ken Welch told residents to expect long power outages and the possible shutdown of the sewer system.
Near Tampa inland, the flooding in Plant City was “absolutely stunning,” according to city manager Bill McDaniel. Emergency crews rescued 35 people overnight, said McDaniel, who estimated the city received 34 inches of rain.
“We have flooding in places and at levels I’ve never seen, and I’ve lived in this community my entire life,” he said in a video posted online Thursday morning.
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Before Milton even made landfall, heavy rain and tornadoes hit parts of South Florida on Wednesday morning, with conditions worsening throughout the day. A tornado touched down in the sparsely populated Everglades and crossed Interstate 75. Another apparent tornado struck Fort Myers, snapping tree limbs and destroying the roof of a gas station.
Spanish Lakes Country Club, near Fort Pierce on Florida's Atlantic coast, was particularly hard hit, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.
“We lost some lives,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, although he did not say how many people were killed.
Debris covers the ground near a crane that fell onto a building along 1st Avenue South in St. Petersburg, Florida, as strong winds from Hurricane Milton devastated the area on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024.
Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP
About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane made landfall, many of them mobile homes in senior living communities, said Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. By Thursday morning, the hurricane was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of about 85 mph (135 km/h) and leaving the state near to Cape Canaveral.
The storm hit a region still unstable two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in West Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many locations along the coast, municipalities rushed to collect and dispose of debris before Milton's winds and storm surge could blow it up and worsen any damage.
Authorities issued dire warnings to flee or face dire odds of survival. By late afternoon, some officials said the time for such efforts had passed, suggesting that those left behind calm down.
Jackie Curnick said she struggled with the decision to stay home in Sarasota, north of where the storm made landfall. She and her husband began packing on Monday to evacuate, but they had trouble finding available hotel rooms and the few they found were very expensive.
With a 2-year-old son and a daughter due Oct. 29, Curnick said there would be a lot of unanswered questions if they got in the car and headed out: where to sleep, whether they could fill the gas tank and whether they could find a safe route. to leave the state.
Video taken during the storm showed howling winds and rain lashing the glass-enclosed pool as her son and dog watched. The trees shook violently.
“The thing is, it’s very difficult to evacuate a peninsula,” she said before the storm. “In most other states, you can go in any direction to get out. In Florida, there are so many roads that take you north or south.”
At a press conference in Tallahassee, Governor Ron DeSantis described the deployment of a wide range of resources, including 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states; more than 50,000 utility workers from as far away as California; and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gas tankers to replenish supplies so people could fill their tanks before evacuating.
“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around it,” DeSantis said.
Authorities have issued mandatory evacuation orders in 15 Florida counties, with a total population of about 7.2 million people. In Orlando, Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and Sea World remained closed Thursday.
More than 60% of gas stations in Tampa and St. Petersburg were out of gas Wednesday night, according to GasBuddy, although DeSantis said the state's overall supply was good.
Authorities warned that anyone left behind should fend for themselves because rescuers were not expected to risk their lives attempting rescues at the height of the storm.
In Charlotte Harbor, about 100 miles south of Tampa, clouds swirled and winds blew as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and other belongings on Wednesday. Two weeks ago, Helene's wave brought about 1.5 meters of water to the neighborhood, and the streets remain full of waterlogged furniture, ripped-out plaster walls and other debris.
Parks, an automotive technician, planned to flee to his daughter's home in the country and said his roommate had already left.
“I told her to pack her bags like you weren’t coming back,” he said.
Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer in New Hampshire; Joseph Frederick in West Bradenton, Florida; Curt Anderson in Tampa; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Brenden Farrington in Tallahassee; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine; Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
