Blitz Bureau
TAMPA, Fla.: Hurricane Milton crashed into Florida as a Category 3 storm on October 9, pounding the coast with ferocious winds of over 100 mph (160 kph), heavy rain and producing a series of tornadoes around the state. Tampa avoided a direct hit.
The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) as it roared ashore 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a prosperous strip of white-sand beaches that’s home to 5,500 people about 70 miles (112 kilometres) south of Tampa. The Tampa Bay area has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century, but the storm was still bringing a potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.
Hurricane Havoc
The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, where over 16 inches (41 centimetres) of rain has fallen so far. Heavy rains were also likely to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida peninsula as a hurricane.
More than 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, according to power outage. us, which tracks utility reports. The highest number of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighbouring Sarasota and Manatee counties. About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said.
About 90 minutes after making landfall on October 9 night, Milton was centred about 20 miles (30 kilometres) northeast of Sarasota and had weakened slightly with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph), becoming a Category 2 storm, the hurricane center reported. Earlier, officials issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.
Multiple tornadoes spawned by the hurricane tore across Florida, the twisters acting as a dangerous harbingers of Milton’s approach. Videos posted to social media sites showed large funnel clouds over neighbourhoods in Palm Beach County and elsewhere in the state.
