Hurricane Milton brought powerful winds, a deadly storm surge and flooding to much of Florida after making landfall along the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm. It weakened to a Category 1 storm as it moved through Florida early Thursday. Power outages were widespread and deaths have been reported from severe weather.
The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) when it roared ashore in Siesta Key, south of the populated Tampa Bay region, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane was bringing deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.
Here’s the latest: Hurricane Milton’s tear of destruction across central Florida left more than 3 million homes and businesses without power around 4 a.m. Thursday, according to PowerOutages.
us . Energy companies serve more than 11.5 million customer accounts across the state, according to the website.
Milton’s high winds and intense rains continued into Thursday morning. Florida's central Gulf Coast was hardest hit by the outages, including Hardee, Sarasota, Hillsborough and Manatee counties. MIAMI — The National Weather Service says the storm’s maximum sustained wind speed was 90 mph (145 kph) at about 1 a.
m. Thursday as it passed east of Lakeland, Florida, on its way across the central peninsula. The weather service uses something called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to estimate potential property dam.