“We did not experience the worst scenario, but we were affected”declared, on Friday, October 11, regarding Hurricane Milton, Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida. The passage of Hurricane Milton caused at least 16 deaths in its path, authorities announced, while around 2.5 million homes and businesses remained without electricity on Friday, October 11. Local authorities counted six deaths in St. Lucie County, four in Volusia County, three in Polk, Orange and Citrus counties, two in the city of St. Petersburg and one in Tampa.
“Specialists estimate (…) which caused damage of 50 billion dollars [45,6 milliards d’euros] approximately “US President Joe Biden said on Friday.
Milton reached the west coast of Florida on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures wind intensity and counts 5, then headed inland, before reaching the Atlantic at the next morning. Its passage triggered numerous tornadoes and devastated a region already devastated by powerful Hurricane Helene about two weeks earlier.
On Siesta Key in Sarasota Bay, Milton left a landscape of desolation, uprooting trees, flooding streets, ripping off at least one roof and littering the community with various debris. In St. Petersburg, in Tampa Bay, the hurricane tore the roof off the local professional team’s baseball stadium and toppled a crane.
Rain and wind worsen due to climate change
Florida, the third most populous state in the country and which attracts many tourists, is used to hurricanes. But climate change, by warming the seas, makes its rapid intensification more likely and increases the risk of more powerful phenomena, scientists warn.
According to an analysis published on Friday by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) scientific network, precipitation in Milton has been between 20% and 30% higher due to climate change and its winds have been 10% stronger. Without global warming, the hurricane would have made landfall in Florida as a Category 2, rather than 3, on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the WWA concluded.
However, for each category increase, the risk of damage generally increases fourfold, estimates the US Oceanic and Atmospheric Observatory Agency (NOAA). Two weeks after Hurricane Helene passed through the same region, causing at least 237 deaths in the southeastern United States (including at least 15 in Florida), this new storm is all the more worrying given the numerous debris caused by the first hurricane They were still visible on the streets and could be blown away by the winds.
Although the damage is impressive in some places, the worst appears to have been avoided, as the hurricane “weakened before landfall”the state governor said on Thursday, estimating that marine immersion “It was not as significant as that observed during Hurricane Helene”. Search operations continued Friday and the Coast Guard announced the dramatic rescue of a boat captain who survived the storm by clinging to an ice chest in the Gulf of Mexico.
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The day before, Joe Biden had called on the population to “stay inside” for the moment, in particular to avoid “downed power lines, debris and washed out roads”. The two hurricanes, which occurred just weeks before an extremely close presidential election, took on a political dimension, with Republicans and Democrats arguing over disaster relief.
