Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida even stronger than Hurricane Helene as a category 3 storm.
205 mph winds battered the Florida Keys at 8.30pm on Wednesday, October 9, leaving 1.5 million homes across Florida without electricity and dumping 41cm of rain on the Tampa Bay area.
Siesta Key, 112 km south of Tampa, had not been hit by a hurricane of this magnitude in 100 years, but the storm threatened the idyllic white sandy beach, home to 5,500 residents, with storm surges of up to 2.7 metres high.
Florida’s Atlantic coast worst hit by Milton
As Milton was about to reach the Florida coastline, tornadoes were already inflicting havoc across Florida state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club on Florida’s Atlantic coast was one of the worst hit zones, with homes destroyed and some residents killed. Exact figures on the extent of that death toll are yet to be released, but around 125 homes have been destroyed, many of which were mobile homes owned by pensioners, even before the hurricane officially made landfall.
After the Keys, the hurricane took just 90 minutes to reach Sarasota, where it weakened slightly to a category 2, but in an area still reeling from Hurricane Helene days before.
Before they arrived, authorities and rescue teams had advised residents to evacuate or face little chance of survival.
