Hurricane Milton brings dangerous flooding after Florida landfall
Hurricane Milton carved a path of destruction after crashing ashore Wednesday evening on Florida’s Gulf Coast, making landfall near Sarasota as the second powerful hurricane to pound the region in less than two weeks. The storm battered the state for much of the day, with heavy winds, pelting rain and a spate of tornadoes.
As Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, there was a brief, eerie calm in Sarasota — for about an hour, the whipping winds quieted, rain ceased, and the sounds of crickets chirping and frogs croaking could be heard. Then, the winds picked up again.
By around midnight, the storm had destroyed more than 100 homes, killed several people in a retirement community and ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.
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Most of Florida’s counties were under a state of emergency on Wednesday, and more than 2 million customers across the state had lost power. Emergency services were suspended in several counties.
There were more than two dozen reports of tornadoes or tornado-related damage from the storm in the state as of Wednesday night, according to National Weather Service. One tore through Spanish Lakes Country Club Village in Fort Pierce, on the Atlantic coastline, and killed several people.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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Originally published on The New York Times
