Milton Unleashes Fury on Florida; Three Million Homes Without Power

Photo: Chris Urso Tampa Bay Times via Associated Press A St. Petersburg resident walks down a street strewn with fallen bricks after a crane fell.

Terry Spencer – Associated Press and Kate Payneet – Associated Press in Tampa

Published at 6:28 a.m. Updated at 6:34 a.m.

• United States

Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday night, wreaking havoc on a coast that had yet to fully recover from Hurricane Helene, pummeling cities with winds of more than 100 miles per hour after producing a barrage of tornadoes but sparing Tampa a direct hit.

The hurricane had sustained winds of up to 127 mph when it made landfall at 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a thriving stretch of white-sand beaches home to 5,500 people about 70 miles south of Tampa.

Even though Tampa was not in the direct path of the hurricane, the situation remained a major emergency, while St. Petersburg recorded more than 16 inches of rain.

Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, in St. Petersburg appeared to be badly damaged. The fabric that serves as a roof over the domed stadium was torn by the high winds. It was unclear whether there was any damage inside. Several cranes were also toppled by the storm, the U.S. National Weather Service said.

Photo: Chris Urso Tampa Bay Times via Associated Press The fabric that serves as a roof over Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, in St. Petersburg was torn by the high winds.

Residents of St. Petersburg can no longer get water from their household taps because a burst main led the city to shut off service.

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The storm knocked out power across much of Florida, with more than three million homes and businesses without electricity Thursday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.

Even before Milton made landfall, tornadoes were making landfall across the state. The Spanish Lakes Golf Club near Fort Pierce on Florida's Atlantic coast was particularly hard hit, with homes destroyed and residents killed.

“We lost lives,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, though he declined to specify how many people died.

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About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane made landfall, many of them mobile homes in senior living communities, Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said.

About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. As of Thursday morning, the hurricane was a Category 1 with maximum sustained winds of about 85 mph (135 km/h) as it moved offshore and was located about 34 miles (55 km) east of Orlando.

Heavy rains were also likely to cause inland flooding along rivers and lakes as Milton tracks across the Florida peninsula as a hurricane, eventually emerging into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday. It is expected to impact the densely populated Orlando area.

The storm hit a region still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and killed at least 230 people in the southern United States. Many municipalities scrambled to clean up debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge moved it and worsened the damage.

Photo: Joe Raedle Getty Images via Agence France-Presse A man walks through a flooded street in Fort Myers, on Florida’s west coast.

At a news conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states, more than 50,000 utility workers from California and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gasoline trucks would be deployed.

“Unfortunately, there will be deaths. I don’t think there are any other options,” DeSantis conceded.

Heavy rain and tornadoes hit parts of South Florida beginning Wednesday morning, with conditions deteriorating throughout the day. Six to 12 inches of rain, up to 18 inches in some places, were expected inland, raising the risk of catastrophic flooding.