Hurricane Milton crashed into the U.S. State of Florida as a Category-3 storm on Wednesday (October 9, 2024), pounding the coast with ferocious winds of over 100 mph (160 kph), heavy rain and producing a series of tornadoes around the state. Tampa avoided a direct hit.

The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) as it made landfall at 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a prosperous strip of white-sand beaches home to 5,500 people about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa.

Also read: Climate change and how hurricane Milton became a Category 5 storm

More than 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday night in Florida, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The highest number of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Before Milton even made landfall, tornados were touching down across the State. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.

“We have lost some life,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, though he wouldn’t say how many people were killed.

Tampa Bay suffers

The Tampa Bay area has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century, but the storm was still bringing a potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, where over 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain had fallen.

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.

About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane even made landfall, 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 centered about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of Sarasota and had weakened slightly with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph), becoming a Category 2 storm, the hurricane center reported. It was moving east-northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).

Milton slammed into a Florida region still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which caused heavy damage to beach communities with storm surge and killed a dozen people in seaside Pinellas County alone.

Evacuation warnings

Earlier, officials issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.

“This is it, folks,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, which sits on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now.”

By late afternoon, some officials said the time had passed for such efforts, suggesting that people who stayed behind hunker down instead. By the evening, some counties announced they had suspended emergency services.

Milton was expected to remain a hurricane as it plowed across the state, including the heavily populated Orlando area, through Thursday.

Close on the heels of Helene

The storm threatened communities still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. 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. Surge was projected to reach as high as 9 feet (2.7 meters) in Tampa Bay.

The famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans the mouth of Tampa Bay, closed around midday. Other major bridges also closed.

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.

Authorities have 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.

Disney World shuts down

By early afternoon, airlines had canceled about 1,900 flights. SeaWorld was closed all day Wednesday, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando shut down in the afternoon.

More than 60% of gas stations in Tampa and St. Petersburg were out of gas Wednesday afternoon, according to GasBuddy. Mr. DeSantis said the State’s overall supply was fine, and highway patrol officers were escorting tanker trucks to replenish the supply.

In the Tampa Bay area’s Gulfport, Christian Burke and his mother stayed put in their three-story concrete home overlooking the bay. Burke said his father designed this home with a Category 5 in mind — and now they’re going to test it.

As a passing police vehicle blared encouragement to evacuate, Burke acknowledged staying isn’t a good idea and said he’s “not laughing at this storm one bit.”

Florida residents living in vulnerable coastal areas were ordered to pack up and leave on August 29 as Hurricane Idalia gained steam in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatened to unleash life-threatening storm surges and rainfall.

Idalia also pummeled Cuba with heavy rains on Monday and Tuesday, leaving the tobacco-growing province of Pinar del Rio underwater and many of its residents without power.

Idalia had strengthened to a Category 2 system on Tuesday afternoon with winds of 100 mph (155 kph). The hurricane was projected to come ashore early Wednesday as a Category 3 system with sustained winds of up to 120 mph (193 kph) in the lightly populated Big Bend region, where the Florida Panhandle curves into the peninsula. The result could be a big blow to a state still dealing with lingering damage from last year’s Hurricane Ian.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee called Idalia “an unprecedented event” since no major hurricanes on record have ever passed through the bay abutting the Big Bend.

On the island of Cedar Key, Commissioner Sue Colson joined other city officials in packing up documents and electronics at City Hall. She had a message for the almost 900 residents who were under mandatory orders to evacuate. More than a dozen state troopers went door to door warning residents that storm surge could rise as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters).

“One word: Leave,” Colson said. “It’s not something to discuss.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis repeated the warning at an afternoon news conference.

“You really gotta go now. Now is the time,” he said. Earlier, the governor stressed that residents didn’t necessarily need to leave the state, but should “get to higher ground in a safe structure.”

“You can ride the storm out there, then go back to your home,” he said.

Not everyone was heeding the warning. Andy Bair, owner of the Island Hotel, said he intended to “babysit” his bed-and-breakfast, which predates the Civil War. The building has not flooded in the almost 20 years he has owned it, not even when Hurricane Hermine flooded the city in 2016.

“Being a caretaker of the oldest building in Cedar Key, I just feel kind of like I need to be here,” Mr. Bair said. “We’ve proven time and again that we’re not going to wash away. We may be a little uncomfortable for a couple of days, but we’ll be OK eventually.”

Tolls were waived on highways out of the danger area, shelters were open and hotels prepared to take in evacuees. More than 30,000 utility workers were gathering to make repairs as quickly as possible in the hurricane’s wake. About 5,500 National Guard troops were activated.

In Tarpon Springs, a coastal community northwest of Tampa, 60 patients were evacuated from a hospital out of concern that the system could bring a 7-foot (2.1-meter) storm surge.

Idalia’s initial squalls were being felt in the Florida Keys and the southwestern coast of Florida on Tuesday afternoon, including at Clearwater Beach. Workers at beachside bars and T-shirt shops boarded up windows, children skim-surfed the waves and hundreds of people watched the increasingly choppy waters from the safety of the sand.

After landing in the Big Bend region, Idalia is forecast to cross the Florida peninsula and then drench southern Georgia and the Carolinas on Thursday. Both Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced states of emergency, freeing up state resources and personnel, including hundreds of National Guard troops.

“We’ll be prepared to the best of our abilities,” said Russell Guess, who was topping off the gas tank on his truck in Valdosta, Georgia. His co-workers at Cunningham Tree Service were doing the same. “There will be trees on people’s house, trees across power lines.”

At 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Idalia was about 195 miles (310 kilometers) southwest of Tampa, the National Hurricane Center said. It was moving north at 16 mph (26 kph).

In Cuba, meanwhile, Idalia left more than 60% of Pinar del Rio’s residents in the dark, Cuban state media reported.

“The priority is to reestablish power and communications and keep an eye on the agriculture: Harvest whatever can be harvested and prepare for more rainfall,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a meeting with government officials Tuesday.

More than 10,000 people had been evacuated to shelters or stayed with friends and relatives as up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain fell. More than half of the province was without electricity.

Cuban state media did not report any deaths or major damage.

Idalia will be the first storm to hit Florida this hurricane season, but it’s only the latest in a summer of natural disasters, including wildfires in Hawaii, Canada and Greece; the first tropical storm to hit California in 84 years, and devastating flooding in Vermont.

With a large stretch of Florida’s western coast at risk for storm surges and floods, evacuation notices were issued in 22 counties, with mandatory orders for some people in eight of those counties. Many of the notices were for low-lying and coastal areas and for people living in mobile and manufactured homes, recreational vehicles or boats, and for people who would be vulnerable in a power outage.

Many school districts along the Gulf Coast were to be closed through at least Wednesday. Several colleges and universities also closed, including the University of Florida in Gainesville. Florida State University in Tallahassee said its campus would be closed through Friday.

Two of the region’s largest airports stopped commercial operations, and MacDill Air Force Base on Tampa Bay sent several aircraft to safer locations. The Busch Gardens Tampa Bay theme park also planned to close. On Florida’s Space Coast, on the other side of the peninsula from where Idalia is expected to make landfall, United Launch Alliance said Tuesday that it was delaying the launch of a rocket carrying satellites for U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.

Asked about the hurricane as he sat down for a meeting with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves in the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said he had spoken to DeSantis and “provided him with everything that he possibly needs.”

Ian was responsible last year for almost 150 deaths. The Category 5 hurricane damaged 52,000 structures, nearly 20,000 of which were destroyed or severely damaged.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently said the 2023 hurricane season would be far busier than initially forecast, partly because of extremely warm ocean temperatures. The season runs through Nov. 30, with August and September typically the peak.

Floridians viewed Idalia’s name with some concern since 13 Atlantic storm names beginning with “I” have been retired since 1955, according to the National Weather Service. That happens when a storm’s death toll or destruction is so severe that using its name again would be insensitive.

Another concern was the presence of a rare blue supermoon, which can cause higher-than-normal tides.

Cedar Key was expected to be at low tide shortly after sunrise on Wednesday, with Idalia forecast to make landfall a few hours later. That’s a bit of a relief since the water level would be higher if the storm surge arrived during a high tide, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.

“That definitely plays a role in coastal flooding,” McNoldy said.