Hurricane Milton crashed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday night, pounding the coast with ferocious winds of over 100 mph and producing a series of tornadoes around the state.
The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph as it roared ashore 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a prosperous strip of white-sand beaches that's home to 5,500 people about 70 miles south of Tampa. 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.
Shortly after landfall, the storm downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane as it headed east.
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.
More than 1.6 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 Sarasota County and neighboring Manatee County.
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“We must be prepared for a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier in the day. “Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around that."
President Joe Biden, who postponed an overseas trip so he could remain at the White House to monitor Milton, warned that it “could be one of the worst storms in 100 years to hit Florida."
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.
Milton was expected to remain a hurricane after hitting land and plowing across the state, including the heavily populated Orlando area, through Thursday. With the storm expected to remain fairly strong as it crosses Florida, hurricane warnings had been extended to parts of the state’s east coast.
“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.”
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How bad is damage expected to be?
Florida's Gulf Coast is especially vulnerable to storm surge.
Helene came ashore about 150 miles north of Tampa in the Florida Panhandle and still managed to cause drowning deaths in the Tampa area due to surges that were about 5 to 8 feet above normal tide levels.
With the storm weaker but growing in size, the surge was projected to reach as high as 9 feet in Tampa Bay.
The county that’s home to Tampa ordered areas adjacent to the bay and all mobile and manufactured homes to be evacuated by Tuesday night. With a predicted storm surge that could swallow a single-story house, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued increasingly dire warnings Tuesday to those planning to ride out the storm: “So if you’re in it, basically that’s the coffin that you’re in."
Milton is forecast to cross central Florida and dump as much as 18 inches of rain while heading toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to the hurricane center.
What if I have travel plans to Florida?
By early afternoon, airlines had canceled about 1,900 flights.
Tampa International Airport halted flights Tuesday morning, posting on X that it is not a shelter for people or their cars. And nearby St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport said it is in a mandatory evacuation zone and closed after the last flight left Tuesday. It said all flights were canceled Wednesday and Thursday.
The tourism machine in Orlando, about 84 miles inland from Tampa, started grinding to a halt Tuesday. Orlando International Airport — the nation’s seventh busiest and Florida’s most trafficked — said it would cease operations Wednesday morning. And at least three major theme parks — Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld — were closed for the day or at least part of it, with the latter two also remaining closed on Thursday and Disney likely to follow suit.
Is it difficult to get gas?
The hunt for gasoline has been compounding the stress for some Floridians.
More than 60% of gas stations in Tampa and St. Petersburg were out of gas Wednesday afternoon, according to GasBuddy. DeSantis said the state's overall supply was fine, and highway patrol officers were escorting tanker trucks to replenish the supply.
On Tuesday, there were long lines and empty pumps at some Florida gas stations as they struggled to keep up with demand. DeSantis said state officials were working with fuel companies to continue bringing in gasoline ahead before the storm's arrival.
Although DeSantis said there wasn’t a fuel shortage, the hunt for gasoline was another nerve-fraying task for people preparing for a major hurricane. Patrick De Haan, an analyst for GasBuddy, said “replenishments are happening,” but about 17.4% of Florida stations were out of fuel as of Tuesday evening. More than 46% of the stations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area had no gasoline as of Tuesday evening, according to GasBuddy.
“You’ve got to have patience,” Stephanie Grover-Brock, a Tampa resident in line for gasoline in the nearby Riverview area, said Tuesday.
Ned Bowman, a spokesman for the Florida Petroleum Marketers Association, said the situation was typical for a Florida hurricane — with demand peaking and some stations temporarily running dry. He said suppliers are “constantly” moving fuel to stations.
How was Mexico affected?
As Milton made it's way toward Florida, authorities in the Mexican state of Yucatan reported only minor storm damage. Power lines, light poles and trees were knocked down near the coast, and some small thatched-roof structures were destroyed, according to Yucatan Gov. Joaquín Díaz. He did not report any deaths or injuries.
