Sarasota. The powerful hurricane Milton devastated the center of the state of Florida from east to west last night, flooding the streets with seawater and causing at least 150 dangerous tornadoes, just two weeks after the devastating cyclone hit Helene, which left 200 dead.
At least 15 people have lost their lives due to events related to the storm
reported the Secretary of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who specified that the deaths occurred during the tornadoes prior to the arrival of Milton. In one of the rescues, Hillsborough County deputies put a 14-year-old boy on a raft who they found clinging to a piece of fence floating in the torrent.
A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man holding on to a cooler in the waters off the state’s west coast after his fishing boat was destroyed off Medeira Beach, hours before the hurricane hit land. The agency estimates that the man survived winds of up to 145 kilometers per hour and waves of 7.6 meters during the night.
Despite the destruction, many people expressed relief that the storm’s passage was not much worse. The city of Tampa was not hit directly, and the potentially lethal storm surge that many scientists feared never materialized. The storm veered south in recent hours and made landfall Wednesday afternoon as a Category 3 hurricane in Siesta Key, 70 miles south of Tampa. Damage was widespread and water levels could continue to rise for several days, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was not the worst possible scenario
.
You get two hurricanes in a couple of weeks, it’s not an easy thing to go through, but I’ve seen a lot of resilience throughout this state.
said the governor in Sarasota. He indicated that he was confident that this area ‘will recover very very quickly
.
Everything was very fast. The water rushed in. It came very strong, with a lot of current
remembers Sandra Escalona, wife of Lidier Rodríguez, a 54-year-old Cuban.
Early yesterday, his apartment in Clearwater, near Tampa Bay in western Florida, began flooding after Milton It hit the ground, so they decided to run upstairs to survive. We ran to grab some papers, loaded the dog and headed out the door. Then we spent the night in front of the upstairs neighbor’s door
Escalona recalled. Hours later, the couple watched as the emergency services who rescued them in the morning helped other neighbors leave their home, a complex of two-story buildings.
Material losses
In St. Lucie, which confirmed four deaths as a result of the tornadoes, various homes and structures throughout the county
included The city of Port St. Lucie and unincorporated areas suffered significant damage
authorities reported in a statement.
Calvin Lee Hamilton, 57, who lives in the area, said I was trying to prepare for the hurricane and the tornado hit me. It was a double disaster
.
The winds of Milton caused a crane to fall at a St. Petersburg construction site, causing only damage and no injuries, authorities said. This is the construction site for a 46-story condominium and office building, which will be the tallest residential tower on Florida’s Gulf Coast; The device crashed into a building near the newspaper Tampa Bay Times without leaving any injuries.
Nearby, the gusts of Milton They tore off panels from the ceiling of Tropicana Field, the stadium where the Tampa Bay Rays, a Major League baseball team, play; there were no victims. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Deanne Criswell, acknowledged that the Florida peninsula was saved of the worst scenario
of all those that had been foreseen, but that raising the alerts served to avoid greater evils.
Officials stressed that the danger has not passed: Storm surge warnings were issued along much of the coast in east-central Florida and northward into Georgia, and tropical storm watches were issued in North Carolina. South.
“To all those affected by the hurricane Milton: They should still stay in their homes and off the roads. Downed power lines, debris and washed out roads are creating dangerous conditions,” President Joe Biden requested yesterday morning in X.
At the White House, Biden responded to Republican candidate Donald Trump: Mr. Former President Trump… do something useful with your life, man, help these people
after asking Republicans to stop spreading false information about recent hurricanes Helene y Milton.
The storm, which spawned a large number of tornadoes with destructive intensity in its path, knocked out power to much of the state and left more than 3.2 million homes and businesses without power, according to the poweroutage.us website. that monitors blackouts.
The impact of Milton Florida marks the sixth time in history that Florida has been hit by three hurricanes in a single year, according to research scientist Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University. The other years were 1871, 1886, 1964, 2004 and 2005.
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