Hurricane Milton arrived at the US West Coast on Thursday bringing with itself inclement weather that has caused damage and mass power cuts in Florida.
Although the Tampa Bay Metropolitan area has not been flooded, as experts had predicted, there have been mass power cuts with over 3 million customers without electricity. The category-3 storm also spawned tornadoes that damaged numerous homes.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor noted that the water levels in the city remained below the levels seen two weeks ago when Hurricane Helene arrived in the state.
The storm arrived in Florida on Wednesday night, bringing along winds as fast as 205 kph. While the hurricane brought its share of chaos, it wasn’t near a Category-5 hurricane that had threatened the state but went over the Gulf of Mexico.
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CNN reported four people died after the storm toppled a retirement community home in St. Lucie County The storm was notably moving away from the Florida Atlantic coast by Thursday morning, and is expected to affect communities living on the eastern shoreline.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he hoped that the storm won’t cause major damage in Tampa Bay, home to over 3 million people and once expected to the storm’s eye. Although the city didn’t welcome extreme damage, the storm left a significant mark; the roof of Tropicana Field, stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, was torn open. The strong winds also dropped a large construction crane in St. Petersburg, sending the large structure crashing down onto a street.
Government sources noted that Hurricane Milton spawned at least 19 tornadoes, damaging infrastructure in different counties and damaging a total of 125 homes, Reuters reported. Furthermore, according to PowerOutage.us, more than 3 million homes and businesses were without power in the state.
St. Petersburg residents were not able to get water inside their homes because a water main break prompted the city to turn off the supply. Mayor Ken Welch warned residents of long power outages and possible sewer system shutdown.
By Thursday dawn, officials continued to warn people about the dangers of the weather. Storm surge warnings were issued.for almost the entirety of the east-central coast of Florida, the state of Georgia, and storm warnings were given along the coast heading into South Carolina. Residents of Florida counties like Hillsborough and Sarasota and others were prodded to stay home and to be wary of downed power lines and flooding.