Hurricane Milton tore a coast-to-coast path of destruction across the US state of Florida, whipping up a spate of deadly tornadoes that left at least four people dead and millions without power on Thursday, October 10.
Milton made landfall on the Florida Gulf Coast as a major Category 3 storm, on Wednesday night. Sustained hurricane-force winds smashed inland through communities still reeling from Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, before roaring off Florida's east coast into the Atlantic.
As dawn broke Thursday, officials repeated that the danger had not passed: Storm-surge warnings were posted for much of the east-central Florida coast and north into Georgia. Tropical storm warnings were in place along the coast into South Carolina. Officials in the hard-hit Florida counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding. "We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out," Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, said on Facebook.
In Clearwater on the west coast, emergency crews in rescue boats were out at first light, plucking stranded residents trapped in their homes by more than a meter of floodwater water.
Wind uprooted large trees and ripped apart the roof at the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field baseball stadium in St. Petersburg, and sent a construction crane falling onto a downtown building nearby. During a break in the storm, Tampa police rescued 15 people from a single-story home damaged by a fallen tree, authorities said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the storm triggered deadly tornadoes and left more than three million people without power. As the eye of the storm exited the peninsula, communities were still contending with strong winds, heavy rainfall, and the risk of flash floods. "We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses," DeSantis said.
Before Milton even made landfall, it started unleashing tornadoes in southern Florida. In a statement on its website, St. Lucie County on the east coast confirmed "four fatalities as a result of these tornadoes." Amid fear of tornadoes, St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson posted a video on his department's Facebook page warning residents to seek shelter. It showed a garage for police cars that had been destroyed.
"The difficulty with the tornadoes is that we don't know where they're going to land," St. Lucie County commissioner Chris Dzadovsky told reporters.
The series of hurricanes has quickly become an election campaign issue as Republican candidate Donald Trump spreads conspiracy theories claiming Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris are abandoning victims. That prompted a furious response from Biden who on Wednesday called Trump "reckless, irresponsible."
President Joe Biden was briefed on the "initial impacts" of Milton, the White House said.
By Thursday morning, Milton weakened to a Category 1 storm but was still registering powerful winds of up to 85 mph (140 kph) , according to the National Hurricane Center.
Scientists say extreme rainfall and destructive storms are occurring with greater severity and frequency as temperatures rise due to climate change. As warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, they provide more energy for storms as they form.
Milton struck just two weeks after another major hurricane, Helene, devastated Florida and other southeastern states, with emergency crews still working to provide relief.
Killing at least 235 people, Helene was the second-deadliest hurricane to hit the continental United States in more than half a century after Katrina, which ravaged the state of Louisiana in 2005, claiming nearly 1,400 lives.