Milton causes heavy damage across Florida

Hurricane Milton barreled into the Atlantic Ocean today after ploughing across Florida as a Category 3 storm, pounding cities with ferocious winds and rain, whipping up a barrage of tornadoes and causing an unknown numbers of deaths. It compounded the misery wrought by Helene while sparing Tampa a direct hit, The Associated Press reported. 

The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall last night in Siesta Key, about 70 miles south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St Petersburg recorded over 16 inches of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding there as well as other parts of western and central Florida.

The storm knocked out power across a large section of Florida, with more than 3.2 million homes and businesses without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.

S&P Global Ratings said today that potential losses from Hurricane Milton could fully deplete the 2024 natural catastrophe budgets for rated US property/casualty insurers, affecting underwriting margins and earnings. However, it expected capitalisation to remain stable.

S&P said the scale of damage from Hurricane Milton remained highly uncertain it could be substantial, potentially matching that of Hurricane Ian in 2022, which resulted in about $60 billion of insured losses.

"We also think global reinsurers will also feel the impact but we do not foresee Milton overstepping the sector's annual catastrophe budgets. In aggregate, our earnings assumptions for reinsurers should remain intact," S&P said. 

Before the storm, Andrew Siffert, Senior Meteorologist from BMS Group, said: “The fears of the top ten loss event seem to have passed with the shift in track away from Tampa Bay, but this will still add to the already $16B loss of five landfalling events so far this season.

“How much it adds to the loss is still in question, but it would appear that a $15B event is not out of the question for the insurance industry, but the much higher loss scenarios of yesterday are likely off the table.”

Steve Bowen, chief science officer and meteorologist at reinsurance broker Gallagher Re said prior to landfall that a loss between of around $30 billion could be expected should the storm pass further south of Tampa, as it did. 

The AP reported that St Petersburg residents also could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service.

“We have lost some life,” St Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, though he wouldn’t say how many people were killed.

About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane came ashore, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. By early Thursday, the hurricane was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of about 85 mph and leaving the state near Cape Canaveral.

It is now expected to weaken as it heads out to sea towards Bermuda. The Bermuda Weather Service predicted its closest point of approach will be 150 miles from Bermuda on Saturday at 11am when the storm will be a subtropical storm with sustained winds of around 40mph. 

Storm surge today remained a concern in many parts of Florida and tropical storm warnings were in place for much of the east-central coast. Officials in hard-hit Pinellas and Sarasota counties urged people to stay off the roads, warning of downed power lines, trees in roadways and blocked bridges.

“The storm may have passed, but it is still dangerous to be traveling this morning,” the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post.

The storm slammed into a region still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage.

At a news conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis described deployment of a wide range of resources, including 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states; over 50,000 utility workers from as far as California; and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gasoline tankers to replenish supplies so people could fill up their tanks before evacuating.

“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” DeSantis said.

Heavy rain and tornadoes lashed parts of southern Florida starting Wednesday morning, with conditions deteriorating throughout the day. Six to 12 inches (15 to 31 centimeters) of rain, with up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) in some places, was expected well inland, bringing the risk of catastrophic flooding.

One twister touched down Wednesday morning in the lightly populated Everglades and crossed Interstate 75. Another apparent tornado touched down in Fort Myers, snapping tree limbs and tearing a gas station’s canopy to shreds.

Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people. By early afternoon, airlines had canceled about 1,900 flights. SeaWorld was closed all day Wednesday, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando shut down in the afternoon.

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch told residents to expect long power outages and the possible shutdown of the sewer system.

In Charlotte Harbor, about 100 miles south of Tampa, clouds swirled and winds gusted as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and other belongings. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet of water to the neighbourhood, and its streets remain filled with waterlogged furniture, torn-out drywall and other debris.

Parks, an auto technician, planned to flee to his daughter’s home inland and said his roommate already left.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” he said.

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