Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm before weakening to a Category 2, bringing destructive winds and catastrophic flooding. The storm has caused power outages, downed trees, and confirmed deaths in St. Lucie County. President Biden has deployed federal personnel to assist with relief efforts.
made landfall at 8:30 tonight near Siesta Key, Florida , as a Category 3 storm. Siesta Key is a barrier island next to Sarasota.
What's making this storm even more dangerous is that it will move east and traverse Florida in the next day. Normally, a storm will weaken over land, but because Florida is not that wide, it does not give the storm much opportunity to come down in terms of strength.Wind speeds have picked to 102 mph in Sarasota. The tops of palm trees are being shredded and sent scattering into the dark. We heard metal scraping as it was ripped off its base.
The agency is closely monitoring the Interstate 4 corridor that connects Tampa, Orlando and Daytona because of the dense population and expected hazardous conditions in the next several hours, Rhome said.A tornado that hit St. Lucie County this afternoon as Hurricane Milton approached the state killed multiple people, Sheriff Keith Pearson said.
St. Lucie Board of Commissioners Vice Chair Chris Dzadovsky urged people to stay home because of the threat of tornadoes from Milton. St. Lucie County is on the Atlantic Coast.A transformer blew out and the lights are flickering on and off in downtown Fort Myers as floodwaters begin to overtake the streets.
Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said roughly 220,000 beds were available across the state earlier today. "The last few moments have gotten extremely violent with the wind," McMillan said."It's safe to say the storm is not over yet."About 160,000 customers don't have power in Sarasota County, where emergency management officials are also closely tracking the storm surge.
Some people have come out in their cars and out of their hotel rooms to look around when they should be sheltering in place. When we get to the back of the eye wall, it will be a very different story.People in the Sarasota area have been taking the threat of Hurricane Milton and its storm surge seriously after what happened with Hurricane Helene, the mayor said.
“So I think once people realized that the storm surge was coming here and it was going to be probably three times what Helene was, they started to get out,” Prummell said.Officials in Orlando are warning residents that if they aren't sheltered in place in the next 30 minutes, it'll be too late. It has been raining all day in Tampa, but the rain has gotten much stronger recently. In one area of the city, 2 to 3 inches of rain per hour could fall, on top of what has already fallen today.
Some buildings were obliterated, cars were flipped and came to rest against houses, and trees were torn down, said Barnes, who witnessed some of the devastation. The rain will become a huge issue near Tampa as flash flood warnings continue for the entire region, which could get 10 inches.The eye of Hurricane Milton is passing over Sarasota, leaving an eerie quiet before the rest of the storm slams this coastal area. There are even birds chirping.
Hurricane Idalia Florida Storm Landfall Flooding Winds
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