At least ten deaths, floods, damaged houses: Hurricane “Milton” hit the US state of Florida on Thursday night and left a trail of destruction behind. More than three million households were without power on Thursday, and in many places houses were under water. However, the feared “worst scenario” of a once-in-a-century storm with horrendous damage and catastrophic losses did not materialize.
“Milton” whips up masses of water over Florida – “This is a matter of life and death”
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“Milton” reached Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday evening (local time) as a category 3 hurricane. As it passed through the state in the southeast of the USA at night, the cyclone weakened to hurricane force 1 by Thursday morning, according to the US hurricane center NHC. but still recorded winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour. Eventually he reached the east coast of Florida and from there continued out into the Atlantic.
“The storm was significant, but fortunately the worst-case scenario did not occur,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Trees were torn down and streets were flooded. The Tampa Bay Rays baseball team’s stadium roof in St. Petersburg was covered by the hurricane. A construction crane collapsed onto a building not far from the stadium. In Clearwater, on Florida’s west coast, emergency crews using inflatable boats rescued residents from the upper floors of flooded buildings while the water was chest-high in the streets.
Pictures show the destruction caused by Hurricane Milton.
ls / rw AFP
