Watch: In Milton’s aftermath, Florida surveys damage from high winds, flood surge

Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida as a Category 3 storm, bringing powerful winds, heavy rain and tornadoes to much of the Gulf Coast, including communities already battered by deadly Hurricane Helene.
By Thursday morning, Milton — weakened, but still dangerous — was moving off Florida’s east coast as a Category 1 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph , the National Hurricane Center said.
It was 75 miles east-northeast of Cape Canaveral around 8 a.m. Hurricane, tropical storm and storm surge warnings were discontinued for Florida’s west coast and Milton was expected to move farther from the peninsula and to the north of the Bahamas.
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Tornadoes touched down across the state before the storm made landfall. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed. Four people were killed, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.
Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, a barrier island of white sand beaches south of the Tampa Bay area, which is home to over 3.3 million people.
Millions of people were ordered to evacuate. President Joe Biden, who postponed an overseas trip so he could monitor Milton from the White House, said it “could be one of the worst storms in 100 years to hit Florida.”
Milton made landfall at 8:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday near Siesta Key, off the coast of Sarasota, about 70 miles south of Tampa.
It has about 5,500 residents, many of retirement age.
Florida International University professor Stephen Leatherman, a.k.a. “Dr. Beach,” named Siesta Beach the United States’ best beach in 2017, and MTV’s “Siesta Key” gave audiences a reality-show view of the place in recent years.
About 125 homes were destroyed before Milton made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for older adults. More than 3.3 million homes and businesses were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
St. Petersburg residents also were without household tap water after the city shut down service due to a water main break.
Officials in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee counties urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.
Florida’s Gulf Coast is especially vulnerable to storm surge, and Milton brought life-threatening high waters to densely populated areas.
Though the deadly storm surge feared for Tampa appeared not to have materialized, the city still saw flooding. Farther south, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office reported localized flooding and storm surge, and Lorraine Anderson, Venice Beach’s public information officer, said on CNN that the area saw an estimated 6 to 7 feet of surge, far below the feared 15.
Helene came ashore about 180 miles north of Tampa and still caused drownings in the Tampa area because of storm surges about 5 to 8 feet above normal tide levels.
Milton was forecast to dump as much as 18 inches of rain as it crosses the state, bringing the risk of catastrophic flooding.
Milton is the latest system in a storm season scientists say is the weirdest they have ever seen.
Beryl became the earliest storm on record to reach Category 5 status, but there was record quiet from Aug. 20 — the traditional start of peak hurricane season — to Sept. 23, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.
Then five hurricanes popped up between Sept. 26 and Oct. 6, more than double the old record of two. On Sunday and Monday, there were three hurricanes at the same time, which had never happened before, Klotzback said.
In just 46 1/2 hours, Milton went from forming as a tropical storm with 40 mph winds to a top-of-the-charts Category 5 hurricane.
Some might wonder if it is possible to control extreme weather events. But scientists say hurricanes are too powerful for that, and climate change is providing more fuel than ever for storms like Helene and Milton.