SARASOTA, Florida — Hurricane Milton churned away from Florida early Thursday as a downgraded Category 1 storm — with those who stayed behind waking to survey the damage as 3 million remain without power and several people already confirmed dead.
Milton was centered off the state’s Atlantic coastline about 10 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral early Thursday with maximum sustained winds of about 85 mph — a far cry from the 120-mph gusts that rocked Florida’s Gulf Coast when the then-Category 3 storm made landfall in Siesta Key, a barrier island town off Sarasota, around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“The storm was significant, but thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a briefing early Thursday.
Still, the storm brought chaos and destruction to much of Florida’s Gulf Coast, with wind gusts exceeding 100 mph and 13-foot storm surges inundating some communities, leaving over 3 million homes and businesses without power Thursday morning, according to PowerOutages.us.
The damaging storm ripped roofs off buildings, including at Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays, and about a dozen devastating tornadoes were spawned by the hurricane.
At least four people died following twisters that tore through St. Lucie County, officials said. The fatalities were reported in the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, an retirement community in Fort Pierce, WPBF News reported.
Florida’s I-75 was littered with debris and broken road signs that blew into the road overnight, a Post reporter on the scene reported.
At least one car was abandoned and overturned on the southbound side of the usually busy interstate, which was down from three lanes to two due to fallen trees.
There was also an 18-wheeler snagged in the road barrier just north of the Manatee River on Thursday.
Debris including couches and cabinets littered Midnight Pass Road in Siesta Key early Thursday morning, however, there were no signs of roofs ripped off homes or surge flooding.
“This was not the storm they said it was going to be. It still sucked but nothing like they projected it to be,” Andrea Shackelford, 37, a bartender at Clayton’s Siesta Grille told The Post on Thursday.
“This is a good outcome,” said Shackelford, who lives 1.5 miles inland from Siesta Key in Gulfgate.
Shackelford said the most shocking part of the storm had been the sound of the wind howling.
“The noise was piercing. I couldn’t believe how fierce the noise was. It started around 8 p.m. and lasted until 2 a.m. and kept coming in bands,” she added.
Fred Brown, 63, who lives about a mile inland, also feared Milton would be more devasating.
“The damage is devastating — this city hasn’t had a direct hit in 100 years — but I expected it to be worse. It’s devastating for the people but I don’t think it’s catastrophic,” Brown said.
Brown, who also works at Clayton’s, seemed to think sandbags around the restaurant helped keep flood water at bay, noting they saw 18 inches of flooding during Hurricane Helene just weeks earlier.
“We foamed in the door seams with expanding foam, then put gorilla tape over that, then a 4mm plastic sheet, then we sandbagged and put our storm shutters up,” he explained.
Thankfully, however, officials in hard-hit Sarasota and Tampa Bay — where catastrophic flooding was forecast — said the storm’s impact was not as bad as they had feared.
“We’ll have storm surge damage but nothing like it could have been. It could have been catastrophic for Tampa Bay,” Mayor Jane Castor said Thursday.
Similarly, Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert told MSNBC the storm’s impact was not as bad on the mainland as expected, but that authorities still had to assess the barrier islands.
While there were plenty of power outages, there were no emergency calls from residents, Alpert added.
“That’s really unusual. Nobody called for a rescue. So my sense is they must have evacuated,” she said.
DeSantis said workers were trying to clear debris from the storm overnight, adding that President Biden’s administration had agreed to all of Florida’s requests for emergency assistance.
“We’ll survey the damage and get people on their feet,” DeSantis said. “We’ll get through this.”
“Our state is a peninsula in the middle of a tropical environment. I mean, we are just built to be able to respond to hurricanes,” he added.
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Milton held onto hurricane status as it crossed the Florida peninsula overnight, and was churning northeast at about 18 mph as it headed away from Florida, the National Hurricane Center said in an update.
“As Hurricane #Milton continues to move offshore, remain cautious. Dangerous tropical storm force winds, flooding & storm surge are impacting the East Coast & Central FL throughout the morning. Avoid flooded areas at all costs & continue to follow all weather alerts,” the state’s division of emergency management warned on X.
Bands of heavy rain and powerful wind gusts continue to pound parts of the state, especially eastern areas, where wind gusts were as high as 92 mph along the Atlantic coast, Fox Weather reported.
Flash flood warnings for heavy rainfall are also in effect for parts of central Florida, but Floridians can expect conditions to ease throughout the day as Milton pushes out to sea.
The storm also brought heavy rainfall and storm surges that caused dangerous flooding in some coastal areas.
St. Petersburg recorded over 5 inches of rain in an hour along with a gust to 90 mph in that hour.
Follow The Post for live updates as Hurricane Milton makes landfall
Meanwhile, parts of downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg flooded after getting over 17 inches of rain.
Water levels rose to over 8 feet near Sarasota close to landfall Wednesday evening while a storm surge of 3 to 6 feet was recorded from Naples to Charlotte Harbor.
Instead of the anticipated 15-foot storm surges, Tampa saw water levels fall by around 5 feet due to blowout winds. Meanwhile, Naples saw a storm surge of nearly 6 feet.
Still, powerful winds rocked both Tampa and St. Petersburg, even tearing the fabric roof off Tropicana Field. The state’s emergency management department had planned to set up a staging site for emergency workers responding to Milton at the stadium.
A flash flood emergency remained in effect for the Tampa Bay area Thursday morning, including the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, the hurricane center said.
The storm surge warning on Florida’s west coast was lifted around 8 a.m., but remained in effect on Florida’s east coast.
With Post wires
