MIAMI (EFE).— Florida authorities showed their relief yesterday Friday after confirming that Hurricane “Milton” did not cause the worst scenario expected, although the cyclone, which entered along the west coast, left destruction in some areas and at least 16 deaths, mostly due to tornadoes in the center and south of the state.
“Although, fortunately, the worst case scenario with this storm was avoided, it still brought destruction and damage in various parts of the state,” acknowledged the state governor, Ron DeSantis, in a press conference, in which he highlighted the effect of tornadoes in counties like St. Lucie, where they left five dead.
The governor explained that it is difficult to prepare for these violent meteorological phenomena, which in this case were very strong and arrived very quickly in various parts of the state.
State authorities, with the help of the federal government, are focusing on rescue tasks in areas that are suffering considerable flooding due to the rains brought by “Milton”, whose outer bands on the northern side dumped a lot of water to inland towns.
According to DeSantis, rescuers have so far rescued 1,600 people and 140 animals that were trapped in flooded areas, and 31 aerial rescue teams remain in operation that fly over the area.
A Coast Guard helicopter rescued a man Thursday who was found “clinging to a cooler with a life jacket” floating in the sea, about 30 miles off the coast of Longboat Key, north of Sarasota, in western Florida. Florida, the federal agency reported.
No power
According to the specialized website PowerOutage, more than 2.2 million users in Florida were without electricity until noon yesterday, especially in the counties along the path that “Milton” followed.
This Category 3 hurricane made landfall on Wednesday night with winds of 205 kilometers per hour on Siesta Key, near Sarasota, and crossed the peninsula to exit along the east coast into the Atlantic on Thursday morning. Yesterday, the city of Tampa was still largely without power and with several traffic lights not working, which led to the death of a woman during a traffic accident that occurred on Thursday night, as confirmed by the Police.
The mayor of Tampa, Jane Castor, stated yesterday that 65% of the traffic lights are not working and that there were agents directing traffic at the main intersections.
Likewise, in a press conference Jane pointed out that many of the city’s gas stations were still inoperable, largely due to flooded streets that prevent the transfer of fuel from the local port to the service stations.
He added that once fuel distribution can begin, the focus of the distribution will first be on the areas affected by “Milton.”
In the Tampa area, whose population is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Helene and the worst was feared with Milton, no major rises in sea level were recorded due to the storm surge and the main damage has been caused by the winds, which “have not necessarily been the strongest Florida has ever seen,” as DeSantis noted.
DeSantis offered his press conference in the town of St. Petersburg, specifically on a street where a construction crane fell due to the hurricane’s winds on an office building, which among others houses the headquarters of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper, winner of several Pulitzer Prizes.
The cyclone was the second to impact the Florida coast that faces the Gulf of Mexico, where the powerful Category 4 Helene entered on September 26 and continued a path of destruction through six states in the southeastern United States. . and killed at least 230 people.
Yesterday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden will visit Florida on Sunday to review areas affected by Milton.
The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell, is present in the affected area and supervising the work of some 1,200 rescue teams that are searching the affected urban areas.
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