Hurricane Milton as it happened: Storm moves off Florida coast; multiple dead in St Lucie county

Thanks for reading our live coverage of Hurricane Milton today. Here’s a look back at what we covered:

Hurricane Milton has started making its way off Florida’s coast.Credit: Bloomberg

• Hurricane Milton made landfall, the fifth in the US this year to do so, on Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night (Thursday morning AEDT) before tracking east across the state.
• More than 3 million people across Florida were without power, while the entire city of St Petersburg’s drinking water supply was shut off after a water main was damaged.
• Police officers and firefighters in Orlando were pulled from the streets to shelter as wild winds of more than 60km/h set in, before being sent back onto the road.
• Multiple people were killed when a tornado tore through a retirement community in the county of St Lucie, while five people were rescued from rubble and overturned cars in Palm Beach.
• The roof of Tropicana Field stadium, where Major League Baseball team the Tampa Bay Rays play, was torn off.
• Hurricane Milton was downgraded to a category 1 storm before it hit Orlando but was still summoning 150km/h winds and storm surges on both sides of Florida’s coast.
• The hurricane started moving off Florida’s east coast on Thursday morning (Thursday night AEDT) but warnings for life-threatening conditions remained in place.

Thanks again for joining us across the day, we’ll be back tomorrow with the latest coverage. I’m Riley Walter, signing off.

Hurricane Milton is moving off Florida’s east coast but still causing life-threatening storm surges, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.

Milton started to cross the coast about 5am Thursday (8pm AEDT), with the NHC warning residents from east-central Florida to southern Georgia of hurricane-force winds and gusts for the next few hours.

“Residents are urged to remain in an interior room and away from windows,” it said in a social media post.

Hurricane Milton is moving off Florida’s east coast.Credit: Bloomberg

Heavy rainfall across central and northern Florida could cause “considerable” flash and urban flooding and river flooding, it said.

Off the east coast, Hurricane Leslie has likely peaked, the NHC said.

On Florida’s west coast, all hurricane and tropical storm warnings have been discontinued, while a storm surge warning for Tampa Bay has been discontinued.

Milton is moving north-east at about 30km/h and was expected to continue at that pace before heading towards the Bahamas. Maximum winds remain at about 140km/h with higher gusts.

Milton was expected to become an extratropical low by Thursday night (Friday morning AEDT).

Footage captured across Florida during Hurricane Milton shows mangled buildings, the roof being torn from a sports stadium, people desperately fleeing tornadoes and swells as big as buildings.

In some videos, the wind howls so loudly it resembles an explosion. In others, the sideways rainfall is so heavy barely anything on the screen is visible.

Satellite images show the scale of the storm as it hits the coast, and debris is washed down flooded streets.

As the “storm of the century” tracks east across Florida, leaving in its wake a path of destruction, we’ve collated footage of some of the damage since it made landfall at Siesta Key on the state’s west coast.

More than 3 million people are now without power across Florida, according to poweroutage.us.

The state’s west coast is still worst affected, with several counties near where Hurricane Milton made landfall the hardest hit.

The outages have spread towards the state’s east coast as Milton tracks across Florida, lashing Orlando with heavy rainfall and strong winds.

Police officers and firefighters in Orlando had been pulled off the streets to shelter until it was safe to be outside but have since returned to the road.

The City of Orlando advised residents to shelter in place and call 911 in an emergency.

Five people have been taken to hospital after being trapped under rubble and overturned cars in Palm Beach, Florida.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue on Wednesday afternoon (Thursday morning AEDT) dispatched 40 units to Wellington, Acreage and Loxahatchee after receiving multiple reports of tornados touching down in the areas, the agency said in a social media post.

Some people were trapped under building rubble, while others were trapped under overturned cars that had been flipped by the strong winds.

The agency’s Special Operations Team rescued one person from an overturned RV, it said.

Several people were treated for minor injuries. Crews at the scenes reported several damaged homes, vehicles and large amounts of debris, the agency said.

Milton has departed Tampa and is now passing Orlando which is facing an increase in winds and rainfall. Floridians will have to wait for the morning sun to assess the worst of the damage.

In the meantime, TikTok remains an archive of anxiety for the build-up to Milton and for the various ways in which people attempted to ensure the survival of their pets.

Rebekah Sue from Bradenton, Manatee County was in the path of the storm when she decided to move her 31-year-old horse inside her home. Laying down wood shavings and moving its food trough inside, Sue’s living room could be mistaken for a horse stall.

Joselyn McRae was preparing for Milton from Punta Gorda further down the east coast of Florida when she put her chickens inside tents in her living room. In a video uploaded to TikTok, McRae wrote “Hurricane Milton won’t stop my ladies from being happy and laying eggs.”

When Hurricane Milton was upgraded to a category five storm overnight, panic buying, forced evacuations and a meteorologist’s tears came with it. It has now been downgraded to category one, but what does that actually mean?

The Saffir-Simpson scale is used in the US to categorise hurricanes based on wind speed to estimate the potential they have for property damage. In Australia, we use a different cyclone scale.

Hurricane Milton pictured from the International Space Station. At this point it was a Category 5 storm over the Gulf of Mexico.Credit: NASA

A category one hurricane (Milton’s current grade) will see winds between 119-153km/h which could cause property damage but not as much as a category two (154-177km/h) which is classed as featuring “extremely dangerous” winds likely to cause extensive damage including power outages that could last weeks.

Anything above category three is defined by the US National Weather Service as being a significant threat to life. Category three (178-208km/h) may lead to losing electricity and water and categories four (209-251km/h) and five (252km/h and above) may see residential areas inhabitable for weeks or months after the storm.

Though Milton’s downgrade to a category one storm means its wind speed is less likely to cause catastrophic damage, there is still a danger of flash flooding and storm surges.

Australian boxer Tim Tszyu’s world title fight in Florida is in danger of being cancelled due to Hurricane Milton.

Tszyu is scheduled to fight for the IBF super-welterweight title against Russian Bakhram Murtazaliev in Orlando on October 20 (AEDT). However, there are fears the event could be cancelled.

Sydney’s Mateo Tapia, who is on the undercard for the promotion, has already been forced to relocate from his Tampa base.

“My thoughts are with everyone in the path of Hurricane Milton,” Tszyu said.

“It’s a terrible situation, and I hope everyone stays safe. At the same time, I’m focused and ready to fight, wherever and whenever we get the news. Nothing will stop me from becoming a two-time world champion.”

Multiple people have died after a tornado tore through a mobile home retirement village on Florida’s east coast.

St Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told CNN more than one body had been recovered.
Pearson said about 200 people from state and local agencies were searching for people trapped at the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, a retirement community. It is unclear how many people have died.

He said hundreds of homes across the county had been “completely totalled” by tornados. A storage facility used by the Sheriff’s Department was also destroyed, he said.

Footage posted to social media shows several homes in the area, about 185 kilometres south-east of Orlando, severely damaged or destroyed.

Thanks for reading our live updates on what US President Joe Biden dubbed “the storm of the century”. Here’s what you need to know late this afternoon.

• Hurricane Milton has been downgraded to category 1, but is still summoning 150km/h winds and dangerous storm surges on both sides of the coast. The hurricane is about to hit Orlando.
• Police officers and firefighters in Orlando have been pulled off the streets to shelter as winds reach more than 60km/h in the city.
• The centre of the hurricane smashed into Florida at category 3 strength, with 200km/h winds, about 8.30pm local time (11.30am AEST).
• The hurricane made landfall at Siesta Key, south of Tampa, Florida’s third most populous city.
• The centre of the storm missed the more heavily populated Tampa Bay area – home to three million people – but flash flooding, storm surges, and record-breaking rain in the area threatens lives.
• At least 2.2 million people have lost power, 250,000 people in St Petersburg were cut off from water, and 125 homes were destroyed by a tornado unleashed by Milton before it made landfall.
• There are reports of multiple fatalities from a tornado that tore through a retirement community in St Lucie.
• Intense rain bursts include a 1-in-1000 year event that saw up to 35 centimetres of water dumped on St Petersburg in three hours.
• Milton comes a fortnight after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the country’s south.
• The hurricane is the fifth to make landfall in the US this year, more than the years from 2021 to 2023 combined.
• US President Joe Biden called Milton “the storm of the century”.

I’m Angus Dalton, handing over to my colleagues Frances Howe and Riley Walter, who will keep you updated in to the evening.

Timelapse from space of Hurricane Milton.Credit: X/@dominickmatthew