Mobile homes surrounded by flood water after Hurricane Milton made landfall, in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S. October 10, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones Purchase Licensing Rights
More than 3 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday, after Hurricane Milton tore across Florida overnight, destroying homes and killing at least ten people, according to data from PowerOutage.us.
Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT) on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kph) near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Milton plowed into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.
Milton has became a post-tropical cyclone on Thursday afternoon, with gradual weakening expected during the next several days, NHC added.
The utility with the most customers hit was Florida Power & Light Company, with 989,230 clients without power, followed by Duke Energy, which has 926,387 clients without power.
Meanwhile, over 93,000 customers in Georgia and North Carolina were still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 200 people across six states, and was the deadliest named storm to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005.
