Hurricane Milton emerged this Thursday into the Atlantic Ocean, after a devastating passage through the state of Florida in the United States, where it caused tornadoes, destroyed houses, left at least 10 dead and cut off electricity to millions of people, but did not cause flooding. catastrophic events that were feared.
President Joe Biden, in a televised address Thursday about the government’s response, said: “This will be a long road to fully rebuilding. “It will take several billion dollars… We will do everything we can to help them recover,” he said.
Earlier, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state had avoided the worst-case scenario, but warned that damage was still significant and flooding remained a concern.
The Tampa Bay area appeared to have escaped the storm surge that had prompted the most severe warnings, although barrier islands along the coast south of the city suffered extensive flooding.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a White House briefing that the government had reports of at least 10 deaths and that they appeared to have been caused by tornadoes. At least 27 tornadoes touched down in Florida, he said.
In St. Lucie County on Florida’s east coast, a series of tornadoes killed five people, including at least two in the Spanish Lakes senior living communities, county spokesman Erick Gill said.
On Thursday, broken concrete power poles and overturned trucks in ditches offered evidence of the tornadoes’ strength.
No electricity
More than 3 million Florida homes and businesses were without power Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us. Some of them had already been waiting for days for the supply to be restored after Hurricane Helene passed through the area almost two weeks ago.
Milton destroyed the fabric roof of Tropicana Field, the stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg, but no injuries were reported. The stadium was a staging area for first responders, with thousands of cots set up on the field.
In downtown St. Petersburg, dozens of curious onlookers took to the streets under bright sunshine to watch a fallen crane that clipped a corner of the Johnson Pope Building on First Avenue South, where the Tampa Bay Times is also located. The wrecked crane stretched from one end of the street to the other.
“For me, it’s shocking and crazy to see that,” said Alberta Momenthy, 27, who lives nearby. “It looks like it collapsed and the building was kind of destroyed.”
Steven Cole Smith, 71, a writer and features editor who lives in Tampa, about seven miles from the Gulf Coast, survived the storm with his wife. He said the wind shook the windows so hard he thought they would break.
“We really didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Smith said of his decision not to follow evacuation orders. He has a home in central Florida, but he said the forecast for that area looked as bad as where he was staying.
“Yesterday I spent the day looking for supplies, fuel for the generator, everything we need,” he said. “I also have a chainsaw.”
Fortunately, he said, Tampa was spared a direct hit.
“Evacuation orders saved lives”
The state was still in danger of river flooding after up to 18 inches (457 mm) of rain fell. Officials were waiting for rivers to peak, but so far levels were at or below those recorded after Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, Tampa Mayor Jane said Thursday morning. Beaver.
Most of the severe damage reported so far was due to tornadoes, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell, who was in Tallahassee on Thursday.
“The evacuation orders saved lives,” he said, noting that more than 90,000 residents went to shelters.
In Fort Myers on the southwest coast, resident Connor Ferin inspected the rubble of his home, which had lost its roof and was filled with debris and rainwater after a tornado.
“This all happened instantly, as if the windows had burst,” he said. “I grabbed the two dogs and ran under my bed and that was it. It probably lasted a minute total.”
President Joe Biden, who postponed a trip abroad to monitor Milton, said Thursday that he believes the U.S. Congress should reconvene to address relief funding needs in the wake of the storm.
“This will be a long road to total reconstruction,” he said in a televised message Thursday. “It will take several billion dollars… We will do everything in our power to help them recover.”
He said he had not spoken to House Speaker Mike Johnson about the issue of Congress returning. Members of the House and Senate are not scheduled to return to Washington until after the Nov. 5 elections.
The storm hit Florida’s west coast Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph. Although still dangerous, Milton had weakened from a catastrophic Category 5 status as it moved through the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.
Milton weakened further as it crossed land, dropping to Category 1 with maximum sustained winds of 145 kilometers per hour as it reached the east coast of the peninsula, the National Hurricane Center (CNH) said. The storm was moving away from Florida’s Atlantic coast, battering communities on the eastern coast.
The eye of the storm made landfall on Siesta Key, a barrier island town of about 5,400 people off Sarasota, about 100 kilometers south of Tampa Bay.
[Con información de AP y Reuters]
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channels YouTube, WhatsApp and to newsletter. Turn on notifications and follow us on Facebook, x and instagram.
Add Comment