
At least 16 people have been reported dead and massive damage has been left behind by Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida's west coast a day ago, causing heavy rains and flooding, tornadoes and widespread power outages.
Milton's winds reached 220 km/h in places despite its partial weakening, prompting the weather service to downgrade it to a Category 1 storm. St. Petersburg, a city near the hurricane's landfall, recorded 41 cm of rain, eight times the city's monthly average for October.
The hurricane also brought a storm surge, flooding water from the coast to inland areas in the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers. More than 2.6 million are still without electricity.
More than 500 people were rescued at an apartment complex in Clearwater overnight due to heavy flooding, officials said. The storm destroyed many homes, toppled trees, dumped debris on roads, downed power lines and toppled a construction crane which crashed into a building.
In his statements yesterday, the state's governor, Ron DeSantis, warned that while the search by rescue teams and other emergency services will continue, the discovery of more bodies is inevitable, especially among citizens who refused to leave their homes. theirs.