By Patricia Mazzei, Jenna Russell and Jacey Fortin
Florida residents found a car thrown across a football field, waters rising to their doorknobs, and homes leveled along the coastline as the full scope of Hurricane Milton’s devastation became clear Thursday.
At least seven individuals lost their lives due to the hurricane, with low-lying coastal areas experiencing severe flooding. While the heavily populated Tampa Bay region avoided the worst of the storm surge, the tempest tore the roof off of Tropicana Field and crashed a tower crane into a downtown St. Petersburg building.
Here’s an overview of our coverage:
— Life-saving alerts: Initiatives to encourage compliance with evacuation warnings seem to have been successful. President Joe Biden reported that over 80,000 Floridians found safe shelter from the storm. The threat of Milton triggered one of the largest evacuations in the state’s history.
— Widespread effects: More than 3.1 million customers in Florida were without power by Thursday afternoon. In certain Gulf Coast counties, the storm caused outages for over 80% of customers.
— Tornado destruction: Milton produced powerful tornadoes far from its landfall, damaging over 100 structures statewide. Local officials in St. Lucie County reported that tornadoes claimed five lives.
— Out to sea: Milton made landfall Wednesday night near Sarasota as a Category 3 storm, crossing the Florida Peninsula while maintaining hurricane strength. As of Thursday afternoon, the storm was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Bahamas.
— External aid: The Biden administration has dispatched 1,000 search and rescue personnel to Florida for recovery efforts following the storm, according to the White House, along with 20 million meals and 40 million liters of water. Assistance also came from at least 20 other states.
