Description
Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm, bringing powerful winds, deadly storm surge and potential flooding to much of the state.
Milton drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters, twice reaching Category 5 status.
The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) when it roared ashore in Siesta Key, Florida, at 8:30 p.m., the Miami-based 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.
Footage from Tampa and traffic cameras across the south of the state showed the intensity of the storm.
More than 1 million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday night in Florida, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
The highest number of outages were in Sarasota County — where the storm made landfall — and in neighboring Manatee County.