Hurricane Milton brought misery to a coast still ravaged by Helene as it ploughed into Florida as a Category 3 storm, pounding cities with winds of over 160km/h after producing a barrage of tornadoes.
The storm compounded the misery wrought by Helene while sparing Tampa a direct hit.
It tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall on Wednesday night in Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 112kmsouth of Tampa.
The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St Petersburg recorded over 41cm of rain, prompting the US National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding there as well as other parts of western and central Florida.
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St Petersburg residents also could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service.
The storm knocked out power across a large section of Florida, with more than three million homes and businesses without power as of early Thursday, according to poweroutage.us.
Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard.
Homes were destroyed and four people were killed in tornadoes there, the St Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said.
About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane came ashore, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. By early Thursday, the hurricane was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of about 135km/h as it churned about 55km south of Orlando.
Heavy rains were also likely to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida Peninsula as a hurricane, eventually to emerge in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.
It is expected to impact the heavily populated Orlando area.
The storm slammed into a region still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the southern United States.
In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage.
Officials had issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.
At a news conference in Tallahassee, governor Ron DeSantis described deployment of a wide range of resources, including 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states; over 50,000 utility workers from as far as California; and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gasoline tankers to replenish supplies so people could fill up their tanks before evacuating.
“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” Mr DeSantis said.
Heavy rain and tornadoes lashed parts of southern Florida starting on Wednesday morning, with conditions deteriorating throughout the day.
Fifteen to 31cm of rain, with up to 46cm in some places, was expected well inland, bringing the risk of catastrophic flooding.
One twister touched down on Wednesday morning in the lightly populated Everglades and crossed Interstate 75. Another apparent tornado touched down in Fort Myers, snapping tree limbs and tearing a gas station’s canopy to shreds.
Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people. Officials warned that anyone staying behind must fend for themselves, because first responders were not expected to risk their lives attempting rescues at the height of the storm.
Mr DeSantis said later on Thursday that Milton was a significant storm but not “the worst case scenario”.
He told reporters that the worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota County, where it was 2.5-3m – less than in the worst place during Helene.
“We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses,” he said. “The storm was significant but thankfully, this was not the worst case scenario.”
Water levels in many Florida rivers are forecast to continue rising, he said. – Reuters/AP
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