2024-10-10 07:32:00
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Milton barreled through Florida as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday, bringing misery to a coast still ravaged by Helen, with winds exceeding 100 mph (100 mph) ) of wind speed sweeps across the city.
The meteor turned southward in recent hours, making landfall Wednesday night on Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 112 kilometers (about 70 miles) south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area remained under a severe state of emergency, and St. Petersburg recorded 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of possible flash flooding in the state and elsewhere in the western and central parts of the state.
Tropicana Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, in St. Petersburg suffered extensive damage. The canvas used as the building’s dome was torn to pieces by strong winds. The meteor also knocked down several cranes, according to the weather service.
Burst water pipes forced authorities to cut off water supplies, leaving residents in the city without running water.
The meteor’s passage knocked out power to much of the state, leaving more than 2.6 million homes and businesses without power early Thursday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which monitors outages.
Even before Milton made landfall, tornadoes were reported across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce on Florida’s Atlantic coast was particularly hard hit, with homes destroyed and several people killed.
“We’ve lost some people,” St. Lucie County Police Chief Keith Pearson told WPBF News, but he did not provide an exact number.
Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Department of Emergency Management, said about 125 homes were destroyed before the storm made landfall, many of them mobile homes in senior communities.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton weakened to a Category 2 hurricane early Thursday and is now a Category 1 with maximum sustained winds of about 145 km/h (90 mph), located about 48 kilometers (30 miles) to the south. .
Heavy downpours could cause inland flooding near rivers and lakes as the hurricane moves across the Florida peninsula and into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday. It is expected to affect the highly populated Orlando area.
Milton is pummeling parts of Florida still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which flooded streets and homes in western Florida and claimed the lives of at least 230 people across the South. In many coastal areas, municipalities scrambled to remove and dispose of debris before the new storm’s high winds and high waves could sweep it away and worsen the damage.
The authorities issued a direct warning to evacuate the area, otherwise the chance of survival would be slim.
“It’s over, guys,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director for Pinellas County, located on the Tampa Bay peninsula. “For those who have been hit by Hurricane Helene, this is going to be devastating. “They need to get out of here, and they need to get out now. “
But by late afternoon, some officials said it was time to flee and advised those who remained to hunker down wherever they were. In the evening, some county governments announced the suspension of emergency services. At a press conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis explained that a wide range of resources were mobilized, including 9,000 National Guard troops from Florida and other states; more than 50,000 from as far away as California Utility workers and highway patrol officers escorted tankers to gas stations to refuel and allowed people to fill up before leaving.
“Unfortunately, people are going to die. I don’t think there’s any way to fix this,” DeSantis said.
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Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in New Hampshire; Joseph Frederick in West Bradenton, Fla.; Curt Anderson in Tampa; Freida Frisaro In Fort Lauderdale; Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; Patrick Whittle in Porter, Maine Lan; Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
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