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Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida on Wednesday evening (October 9, 2024) at approximately 8:30 p.m. EDT, packing maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour and a central pressure of 954 millibars.
Siesta Key is located approximately fifty miles south of Tampa – a city of more than three million.
At landfall, Milton was a category three storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale – having weakened from category five status earlier in the day. At its peak, Milton was tied for the sixth-strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin by virtue of wind speed (180 miles per hour). The storm was the fifth-strongest based on central pressure (897 millibars). While Milton may have lost some of its oomph prior to coming ashore, its destruction was catastrophic.
Numerous tornados, a massive storm surge, widespread flash flooding and damaging winds tore through the center of the Florida peninsula – leaving a dozen people dead and more than 3 million people without power as of Thursday afternoon (October 10, 2024).
While the number of Floridians without power was steadily dropping, expect the death toll to climb.
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We are out assessing damage. Several roads impassable, homes flooded, and DeLand Police conducting high water rescues.
— City of DeLand (@CityofDeLand) October 10, 2024
In 24 hours, we estimate we received more than 18 inches of rain. 20 inches dating back to Monday.
Stay off the roads and let our crews work. pic.twitter.com/wrU2M1bFE6
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According to AccuWeather, the initial total damage and economic loss associated with Milton will fall between $160 billion and $180 billion – making it one of the top ten costliest storms in history.
“Milton will go down as one of the most damaging and impactful storms in Florida history,” the weather service noted in its release.
In fact, Milton and its even costlier predecessor – Hurricane Helene – may wind up combining to completely erase any modest economic gains America recorded in 2024.
“With Hurricane Milton’s total damage and economic losses of $160-180 billion, the sum of two hurricanes in just three weeks elapsed time has a total damage and economic loss of near two percent of the country’s GDP, putting the Federal Reserve in a quandary,” AccuWeather founder and executive chairman Dr. Joel N. Myers said in a statement accompanying his company’s damage estimate. “On the one hand, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to reduce inflation. However, the storms cause inflation by increasing the costs of certain goods. On the other hand, the hurricanes are harmful to the economy causing some businesses to fail and others to struggle because of the disasters, so jobs are being lost, and people and overall businesses and the economy will face a long tail of economic impacts from the disasters.”
Given anticipated year-over-year economic growth of between 1-2 percent, Myers warned that the damage from Milton and Helene “may wipe out all expected growth in the economy over that period.”?
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Florida governor Ron DeSantis was coordinating the response to the storm, including “the pre-staging of over 50,000 linemen, utility companies and telecommunications providers… working hard to restore power and connectivity to these communities as quickly as possible.”
“Florida is working closely with our local and federal partners, alongside businesses and charitable organizations, to make sure Floridians get the help they need to get back on their feet,” DeSantis said. “We are a resilient state, and I have no doubt that Siesta Key and all areas affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton will bounce back. We are here for them every step of the way.”
As we did with Helene, Francine, Debby and the other major storms of 2024, our media outlet tracked them from inception to impact… and we will continue to assess their fallout moving forward.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
I guess I would have better luck in Western North Carolina. I mean, 12 vs hundreds, or maybe thousands…
Plus, as I understand it, North Carolina has no laws against my kind of thing. I might rent a bus and see if any like minded individuals care to ride along with me.
While DeSantis was concentrating on making Florida the place where woke goes to die, it has actually ended up being the place where property insurance goes to die. Good luck, Floridians,.
This isn’t normal weather behavior. While the psychotic fringe of the right dreams up weather control technology wielded by demonic liberals, the simple reality they were being told for decades has finally arrived. We’ve helped create an environment that will generate monster storms for decades, even centuries to come.