Hurricane Milton has hit Florida’s west coast in the Tampa Bay area, spawning tornadoes and unleashing heavy rain and damaging winds on the region, resulting in unconfirmed reports of fatalities, US media reported.
The first images of raging waves and wild winds look apocalyptic. Surveillance cameras are flooded with water, they are switched off. The entire Florida coastline is predicted to change after its attack, four-metre waves will cause unprecedented flooding, remnants of buildings that Hurricane Helene two weeks ago did not tear apart will be blown away. St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News after a series of tornadoes hit an area near Fort Pierce:
“We have lost some life.”
Millions of people along a more than 483-kilometre stretch of coastline are at risk of evacuation. The storm is expected to cause a life-threatening surge of seawater to coastal areas.
The storm hit Siesta Key, south of the city of Tampa, on Wednesday evening local time, in a direct hit to the once-in-a-century region.
The National Weather Service reported flash flooding in the Tampa Bay area, which received more than 41 centimetres of rain.
Heavy rains could also cause flooding in rivers and lakes inland as Milton passes through the Florida peninsula as a hurricane and will enter the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.
According to Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Office of Emergency Management, about 125 homes were destroyed even before the hurricane made landfall, many of them mobile homes in senior living communities.
Milton is “extremely dangerous major hurricane”
As of Wednesday morning, Milton was a Category Five hurricane – the highest level – with maximum sustained wind speeds of 260 kilometres per hour, but after making landfall, the US National Hurricane Centre downgraded it to Category Three and then Category Two.
It was later downgraded to category one with wind speeds of up to 150 kilometres per hour. But despite fluctuations in its strength, the agency said it remains an “extremely dangerous major hurricane.”
The hurricane’s impact, caused by unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, covered an area of more than 3 million people, with an estimated 2 million people without power.
The region has already been hit by Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, which killed at least 230 people in six states.
After making landfall on the state’s west coast, Milton is expected to maintain hurricane strength as it crosses the Florida peninsula and pose a storm surge risk on the state’s Atlantic coast as well.
The National Weather Service confirmed that at least five tornadoes had touched down in South Florida by Wednesday afternoon.
Four bridges spanning Tampa Bay were closed before the storm was expected to hit the city, according to the Florida 511 website. Most of the levees connecting the Gulf barrier islands to the mainland were also closed, leaving anyone who chose to wait out the storm stranded despite calls from officials.
Matter of life and death
In Orlando, many residents said they had confidently weathered previous hurricanes, but Milton’s rapid strengthening and officials’ warnings forced them to take precautions unusual for an inland city.
Jim Nagini, a 61-year-old homeless man who has lived here for nearly three decades, said he had survived previous hurricanes on the streets but decided to seek shelter during Milton. He said:
“This hurricane feels different. After what happened last week in North Carolina, it seems like an unexpected disaster could hit unaccustomed places. That’s why I decided to seek refuge here.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced that Milton could become the hurricane of the century and urged residents to listen to local officials. Biden said:
“This is literally a matter of life and death.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said trucks were working 24 hours a day to remove piles of debris left behind by Helene.
Nineteen hospitals were evacuated, the Florida Hospital Association said. Mobile homes, nursing homes and assisted living facilities are subject to mandatory evacuations. Milton is the 13th storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1.
