Hurricane Milton ripped through southwest Florida on Wednesday, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend region.
Hurricane Milton made landfall near Sarasota County as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday evening. It was later downgraded to a Category 1.
Before Hurricane Milton even hit, tornadoes wrecked homes and killed four people. St. Petersburg police confirmed an additional two fatalities from the storm on Thursday, NBC News reported.
Widespread flooding and winds of up to 120 mph left over 3.3 million homes and businesses without power as of Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Hurricane Milton weakened before reaching the Florida coast, lessening storm surges that were predicted to be on par with Hurricane Helene.
“The storm was significant, but thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario,” he said at a briefing on Thursday.
At a time when hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more costly, the cost of Hurricane Milton’s …