Hurricane Milton plowed into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday after cutting a destructive path across Florida that spawned more than a dozen tornados, destroyed homes and killed at least four people, but the storm did not trigger the catastrophic surge of seawater that was feared.
Governor Ron DeSantis said the state had avoided the worst-case scenario, though he cautioned the damage was still significant. The Tampa Bay area appeared to have escaped the storm surge that had prompted the most dire warnings.
The four deaths occurred in St Lucie on Florida's east coast, with at least two of those in the Spanish Lakes Communities, a set of retirement neighbourhoods, when multiple twisters touched down on Wednesday afternoon, county spokesperson Erick Gill said. It was unclear whether the other two fatalities were at Spanish Lakes, he said.
There were 19 confirmed tornados in Florida as of 8 pm on Wednesday, about the time Milton made landfall, DeSantis said. Some 45 tornados were reported throughout the day, mostly in the central and eastern parts of the state, the National Weather Service said.
More than 3 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. At least some of them had been waiting days for power to be restored after Hurricane Helene hit the area nearly two weeks ago. The hurricane tore a gaping hole in the fabric roof of Tropicana Field, the stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St Petersburg, but there were no reports of injuries. The ballpark was a staging area for responders, with thousands of cots set up on the field.
"One of the blessings for us is that we did not see that predicted storm surge. That saved a lot," Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said during an early morning press conference.
In the Tampa area, the storm toppled trees, threw debris across roadways and downed power lines, video footage from local news showed. Some neighbourhoods were flooded, but the extent of the damage will not be known until crews can assess the destruction, Castor said.
Steven Cole Smith, 71, an automotive writer and editor who lives in Tampa about 11 km from the Gulf Coast, rode out the storm with his wife. He said the wind shook the windows so hard he thought they would shatter.
"We really didn't have anywhere else to go," Smith said of their decision not to follow evacuation orders. He has a house in central Florida, but thought the forecast for that area was as bad as where he was staying. "I spent yesterday scavenging for supplies, fuel for the generator, everything we'd need," he said. "I have a chainsaw too." Luckily, he said, Tampa was spared a direct hit. — AFP
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