Hurricane Milton The hurricane killed at least 16 people in Florida, with about 2.5 million homes and businesses remaining without power on Friday despite the less powerful disaster than expected, authorities said.
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Ron DeSantis, the governor of this southeastern US state, said on Friday: “We did not face the worst-case scenario, but we were affected.”
The death toll is at least 16: six in St. Lucie County, four in Volusia County, three in Polk, Orange and Citrus counties, two in St. Petersburg, and one in Tampa, according to local authorities.
Milton It made landfall on Florida's west coast on Wednesday evening as a Category 3 hurricane — on the Saffir-Simpson scale of 5 — and then made its way inland, before reaching the Atlantic Ocean the next morning.
Its passage spawned several tornadoes and devastated an area already devastated by powerful Hurricane Helen about two weeks earlier.
In Siesta Key on Sarasota Bay, where the hurricane made landfall, evacuees gathered Friday to see the damage.
Mark Horner (67 years old) told AFP: “We were told that the situation was better than we feared, but when I looked closely and drove, I saw that we were badly damaged.”
Here, Milton left a landscape of desolation, uprooting trees, flooding streets, tearing off at least one roof, and littering the area with various debris.
Climate change
Florida, the nation's third-most populous state that attracts many tourists, is accustomed to hurricanes. But scientists warn that climate change, by warming seas, makes rapid intensification more likely and increases the risk of more powerful phenomena.
According to an analysis published by the World Wide Web of Weather Classification (WWA), rain fell from… Milton It was about 20 to 30% higher due to climate change and 10% higher winds.
The WWA concluded that without global warming, the hurricane would have made landfall in Florida as a Category 2 instead of a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures wind intensity.
However, for every increase in category, the risk of damage generally multiplies by four, NOAA estimates.
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In St. Petersburg, on Tampa Bay, the tornado tore off the roof of the local professional team's baseball field and toppled a crane.
Joe Biden warned Wednesday evening that Milton was expected to be “one of the most destructive hurricanes in more than a century in Florida.”
Two weeks later, the hurricane passed the same area Helenwhich left at least 237 people dead across the southeastern United States (including at least 15 people in Florida), this new storm was even more troubling as the numerous debris caused by the first hurricane was still visible in the streets and could To fly. Away from the wind.
The state's governor noted Thursday that if the damage was impressive in some places, it seemed that the worst had been avoided, as “the hurricane weakened before making landfall,” estimating that the sea inundation “was not as significant as that observed for the hurricane.” Helen“.
Searches continued Friday, and the Coast Guard announced an amazing rescue of a boat captain who survived the storm by clinging to an ice chest in the Gulf of Mexico.
The day before, Joe Biden called on residents to “stay home” for the time being, especially to avoid “downed power lines, debris, and washed-out roads.”
The two hurricanes, which occurred just weeks before a very close presidential election, took on a political dimension, as Republicans and Democrats entered into a debate over disaster aid.
