‘Milton has now arrived with a vengeance’: ITV News US Correspondent is in Florida where Hurricane Milton has left two million without power, and forced millions to evacuate
Hurricane Milton has made landfall in Florida, bringing tornadoes and causing an unknown number of deaths.
Emergency services in a number of counties across Florida were forced to suspend operations until it is safe for workers to be on the ground.
More than two million homes and businesses are now without power in Florida.
Tornadoes, whipped up before Milton made landfall, have killed several people at the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.
A number of people were also feared dead after a tornado ripped through a mobile home retirement community in St. Lucie County on the east coast.
The storm sustained winds of 120 mph as it hit Siesta Key, Florida at 8.30 pm local time, the National Hurricane Centre said on Thursday.
A “flash flooding emergency” has been issued for parts of Tampa.
The storm hit the land as a Category 3 hurricane has since downgraded to a Category 1 storm.
Authorities have warned storm surges along some parts of the coastline could reach up to 13 feet (four metres), flooding entire houses.
Could record-breaking Hurricane Milton be the ‘worst storm in US history?’ ITV News Correspondent Robert Moore reports from Florida
On Wednesday, Deanne Criswell, from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA, said Floridians need to prepare for “catastrophic impacts” and that the storm would be deadly.
The storm’s outer bands began impacting Florida on Wednesday, as the storm closed in on Tampa’s coast.
Ahead of Hurricane Milton, Florida’s main airport and tourist attractions including Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld closed on Wednesday as the storm approached.
All flights between the UK and Florida have also been cancelled.
Motorways across Florida have been blocked by queues of traffic as people heeded warnings to evacuate, with CNN reporting a quarter of petrol stations had no fuel on Wednesday.
President Biden, who postponed an overseas trip so he could remain at the White House to monitor Milton, warned that it “could be one of the worst storms in 100 years to hit Florida”.
Just two weeks before Milton’s landfall, Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes across western Florida, leaving at least 230 people dead.
In bayside towns such as Punta Gorda, streets are still filled with piles of sodden furniture, clothes, books, appliances and other rubbish from ruined homes.
State and local governments scrambled ahead of Hurricane Milton to remove piles of debris left in Helene’s wake, fearing that the oncoming hurricane would turn loose wreckage into flying missiles.
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