Hurricane Milton is marching across central Florida in the United States, whipping up deadly tornadoes, destroying homes and knocking out power to nearly 2 million customers.
The storm made landfall about 8.30pm on Wednesday (local time) as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 195km/h near Siesta Key, the US National Hurricane Center said.
By early on Thursday, wind speeds reduced to a still dangerous 150km/h, dropping Milton to a Category 1 hurricane, with heavy rains and damaging storm surges. The hurricane was located about 75km west-southwest of Cape Canaveral, home to NASA's Space Force Station.
A flash flood emergency was in effect for the Tampa Bay area including the cities of Tampa, St Petersburg and Clearwater, the hurricane centre said, with St Petersburg already receiving 42cm of rain on Wednesday.
Milton rampaged through the Tampa Bay area, tearing the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays' home baseball stadium, Tropicana Field, in St Petersburg. Pieces of the non-retractable roof were seen flapping in the wind. According to WFTS-TV in Tampa, there were no reported injuries at the site. The stadium was being used as a shelter for first responders in the build-up to the response to the storm.
In the parking lot of a Walmart in south St Petersburg on Wednesday morning, Henry Henry waited in a black van to shuttle passengers to a Tampa shelter before Milton's arrival. But no one showed up.
"I don't believe people are waiting for the last moment today," said Henry, as rain hammered the shuttle's roof. "Most people have already evacuated. They are not waiting for it."
The eye of the storm landed in Siesta Key, a barrier island town of some 5400 off Sarasota about 100km south of the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, which is home to more than 3 million people.
Governor Ron DeSantis said he hoped Tampa Bay, once seen as the potential bull's eye, could dodge major damage and that the worst of the predicted storm surge could be avoided thanks to the landfall coming before the high tide. Forecasters said seawater could still rise as high as 4 metres.
DeSantis reported Milton had also spawned at least 19 tornadoes caused damage in numerous counties, destroying around 125 homes, most of them mobile homes.
"At this point, it's too dangerous to evacuate safely, so you have to shelter in place and just hunker down," DeSantis said upon announcing the landfall.
At least two deaths were reported at a retirement community following a suspected tornado in Fort Pierce on the eastern coast of Florida, NBC News reported, citing St Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson. His department did not immediately respond to a request for details.
Pearson estimated 100 homes were destroyed in the county where some 17 tornadoes touched down, NBC said.
More than 2 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power, according to PowerOutage.us
US President Joe Biden was briefed by emergency authorities on the initial impacts of the hurricane, according to a White House statement. Earlier, he and Vice President Kamala Harris urged residents to follow local officials' safety recommendations at a White House briefing.
"It's literally a matter of life and death," Biden said.
The storm was expected to cross the Florida peninsula overnight and emerge into the Atlantic, still with hurricane force, on Thursday.
Milton is forecast to maintain hurricane intensity while crossing Florida later on in the morning but after moving into the Atlantic it is likely to gradually lose tropical characteristics and slowly weaken, the US Hurricane Center said.
In a state already battered by Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, as many as 2 million people were ordered to evacuate, and millions more live in the projected path of the storm.
Much of the southern US experienced the deadly force of Hurricane Helene as it cut a swathe of devastation through Florida and several other states. Both storms are expected to cause billions of dollars in damage.
Michael Tylenda, who was visiting his son in Tampa, said he was heeding advice from officials to evacuate.
"If anybody knows anything about Florida, when you don't evacuate when you're ordered to, you can pretty much die," Tylenda said. "The house can be replaced. The stuff can be replaced. It's just better to get out of town."
Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi told CNN that people who remain on the barrier islands in her county south of Tampa would likely not survive the projected 3- to 5- metre storm surge.
"If you choose to stay, make sure you have a life preserver handy," she said.
The four bridges spanning Tampa Bay were closed before the storm was due to make landfall, according to the Florida 511 website. Nearly everyone who decided to flee appeared to have done so, as most streets in nearby St Petersburg were nearly deserted by midday on Wednesday.
Most causeways connecting the Gulf barrier islands to the mainland were also shut, stranding any who decided to ride out the storm despite pleas from officials.
While human evacuees jammed the highways and created gasoline shortages, animals including African elephants, Caribbean flamingos and pygmy hippos were riding out the storm at Tampa's zoo.
Nearly a quarter of Florida's petrol stations were out of fuel on Wednesday afternoon.
In Orlando, many people said they had ridden out previous hurricanes, but Milton's rapid intensification and warnings from officials spurred them into taking unusual precautions for the inland city.
Jim Naginey, a 61-year-old homeless man who has lived in Orlando for nearly three decades, said he had survived previous hurricanes on the streets. But he decided to seek shelter during Milton, joining scores of others in Colonial High School, where families huddled on the gym floor, munching on bananas and sandwiches and sipping water provided by Orange County.
"This one seems different," Naginey said. "After seeing what happened last week in North Carolina, it seems that unexpected disaster can hit in places not used to it. That's why I decided to seek shelter here."
In Fort Myers, mobile-home resident Jamie Watts and his wife took refuge from Milton in a hotel after losing their previous trailer to Hurricane Ian in 2022.
"My wife's happy. We're not in that tin can," Watts said. "We stayed during Ian and literally watched my roof tear off my house. So this time I'm going to be a little safer."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency had moved millions of litres of water, millions of meals and other supplies and personnel into the area. None of the additional aid will detract from recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene, the agency's administrator, Deanne Criswell, said earlier Wednesday.
Trucks have been running 24 hours a day to clear mounds of debris left behind by Helene before Milton potentially turns them into dangerous projectiles, Governor DeSantis said.
About 9000 National Guard personnel were deployed in Florida, ready to assist recovery efforts, as were 50,000 electricity grid workers in anticipating of widespread power outages, DeSantis said.
Search and rescue teams were prepared to spring into action as soon as the storm passes, working through the night if needed.
"It's going to mean pretty much all the rescues are going to be done in the dark, in the middle of the night, but that's fine. They're going to do that."
About 2.8% of US gross domestic product is in the direct path of Milton, said Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics. Airlines and energy firms were among the companies halting their Florida operations as they braced for disruptions.
Major Florida theme parks were shuttered ahead of the storm, with Disney World, Universal Studios and SeaWorld all closing their doors on Wednesday.
Nineteen hospitals were evacuated, the Florida Hospital Association said. Mobile homes, nursing homes and assisted-living facilities faced mandatory evacuation.
Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic, growing from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in less than 24 hours.
"These extremely warm sea surface temperatures provide the fuel necessary for the rapid intensification that we saw taking place to occur," said climate scientist Daniel Gilford of Climate Central, a non-profit research group.
"We know that as human beings increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, largely by burning fossil fuels, we are increasing that temperature all around the planet."
