Weary Floridians will confront a growing death count, flooding, homelessness, gas shortages, and power outages on Thursday morning as Hurricane Milton’s overnight trail of destruction becomes evident in the harsh light of day.
The massive weather event smashed Florida as a Category 3 storm, bringing misery to millions still ravaged by Hurricane Helene, pounding cities with winds of over 100 mph alongside a barrage of tornadoes, but sparing Tampa a direct hit.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm.
By early Thursday, the hurricane was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of about 85 mph as it moved offshore and was about 35 miles east of Orlando.
The storm knocked out power across a large section of Florida, with more than three million homes and businesses without power as of early Thursday, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
The energy problems don’t end there.
“Almost a quarter of gas stations in Florida don’t have gasoline,” said Patrick De Haan, Head of Petroleum Analysis at the gasoline analysis site GasBuddy. “In Tampa … 63 percent of stations don’t have gasoline right now,” he told NewsNation’s “CUOMO.”
About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane came ashore, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management as reported by the Associated Press.
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.
It is expected to impact the heavily populated Orlando area.
Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes 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.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters during a Wednesday evening press conference prior to landfall that there were 116 tornado warnings with 19 confirmed touch downs.
“Massive amounts” or search-and-rescue equipment and personnel were on stand by, he said, “and we hope there’s not a big need for that.”
About 9,000 National Guard personnel from Florida and other states have been deployed, he said.
