More than 2 million people were left without power due to Hurricane Milton, which swept through Florida, causing deaths and floods.
Associated Press reports this.
Hurricane Milton in Florida: What's the Situation
Hurricane Milton hit Florida on Wednesday, October 9, as a Category 3 storm, wreaking havoc on the coastline still suffering from Hurricane Helen. With winds reaching more than 100 mph, the storm spawned a tornado.
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More than 2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida as a result of the storm, according to poweroutage.us, a website that tracks utility reports.
The majority of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties.
Even before Hurricane Milton made landfall, tornadoes swept across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce on Florida's Atlantic coast was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.
“We lost some lives,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, though he did not give an exact death toll.
Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said about 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane made landfall, many of them mobile homes in senior communities.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane.
By late Wednesday, Oct. 9, the hurricane was churning at a top speed of about 103 mph (165 km/h), and storm surge warnings were in effect for parts of the Florida Gulf Coast and Atlantic Ocean.
What's Happening in Florida Now and What's Next forecasts
Heavy rains could also cause flooding on rivers and lakes inland as Milton crosses the Florida peninsula as a hurricane, eventually emerging into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, it said. It is expected to impact the densely populated Orlando area.
The storm hit a region still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Helen, which flooded streets and homes across western Florida and killed at least 230 people in the state's south.
In many places along the coast, municipalities scrambled to collect and dispose of debris before winds and Storm Surge Milton scattered it and made the situation worse.
Heavy rain and a tornado swept across southern Florida on Wednesday morning, with conditions worsening throughout the day. Rainfall inland is expected to range from 6 to 12 inches (15 to 31 cm), with up to 18 inches (46 cm) in places, threatening catastrophic flooding.
As for the current situation in Florida, authorities have issued mandatory evacuation orders for 15 Florida counties with a combined population of about 7.2 million people.
