The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Day 5 (An American Tragedy)-Assessing Damage from Hurricane Milton
Dear Diary. Thankfully, Milton came ashore last night south of Tampa Bay, making landfall in Sarasota, located about 50 miles to the south of the Tampa/St. Petersburg metropolitan area. Maximum storm surge would have occurred if Milton had made landfall just north of the bay in which a strong fetch of easterly winds could have been 10-15 feet, inundating so much more infrastructure. Also, it appears that Milton only had CAT2 force winds in gusts.
Nevertheless, Milton was a large hurricane, so gusts around 100 mph were widespread from Tampa southward to Sarasota. Also, Milton’s heavy rainfall inundated a widespread area from Tampa to Orlando. As of this writing ten people have died from Milton and its associated tornadoes well to the south and east of Milton’s track, which was probably the worst outbreak of funnels in association with a landfalling hurricane in Florida’s history. Electricity is out for millions, and there has been widespread structural damage, particularly on barrier islands and across Tampa itself. Tampa did have the worst hurricane from Milton since 1921, but the 1921 event was far worse.
Was Milton the Katrina of this decade so far? Probably not, but the combination of the back-to-back one two punch of Milton and Helene might be comparable to damage left by Kateina, even more costly than the $125 billion price tag from that system in 2005. It is my hope that Milton and Helene turn the tide of climate politics such that delay in climate action be squarely placed under the feet of Republicans, who should be voted out of office this fall. Also, Trump should never again be allowed to step into the Oval Office, of course.
To start out, here is the latest report from the Washington Post on damage from Milton (I posted some selected excerpts. For the full article, here is the link.):
Hurricane Milton had mostly moved off from Florida’s east coast into the Atlantic as of midday Thursday. In many places, the storm’s destruction was becoming clearer, as in other pockets, the severity of the impact was already evident.
More than 3 million customers were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, and officials said that across the state, at least six people died during the storm. At least four were killed in St. Lucie County, officials said, a result of tornadoes that hit Wednesday before the center of the storm crashed ashore. In St. Petersburg, Police Chief Anthony Holloway said during a Thursday morning briefing that two people died there during the storm.
Key updates
- At least 2 dead in St. Petersburg during Milton, police chief says
- Milton is the fifth hurricane to hit Gulf of Mexico this year. How rare is that?
- Biden, DeSantis speak by phone about storm’s impacts
‘We prefer wind to water damage’
ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — It was difficult to distinguish damage from the back-to-back hurricanes that struck the city’s coastal communities. In Vina Del Mar, where every other home seemed to have flooded during Helene and many people evacuated ahead of Milton, the latest storm hurled an electrical tower across the entrance bridge, where sheriff’s deputies were turning residents away Thursday as they awaited repair crews.
In nearby Pass-A-Grille, debris piles on the main road through town remained intact, while those on side streets were hurled every which way. The beachfront road, Gulf Way, was covered with sand — less deep than after Helene, but still requiring cleanup.
Business owners who had just finished hauling out flood debris from Helene before Milton hit were assessing the latest damage — less flooding, more wind, they said.
“We prefer wind to water damage,” said Al Bobelis, manager of Pass-A-Grille Marina, where he strung yellow police tape across a debris-strewn parking lot Thursday.
Helene had flooded the marina and weakened one of its walls, which crumpled during Milton, Bobelis said.
He had weathered many storms in his 45 years in town, he said, but Helene and then Milton were “the worst.”
OnIn St. Petersburg, Police Chief Anthony Holloway said during a Thursday-morning briefing that two people had died there during the storm.
One was a medical death, he said. The second person was found dead in a park, and their cause of death is being determined by the medical examiner. the bright side, he said, the marina’s 80 boats were intact.
“Helene did way more damage,” he said. “I had four feet of water last time. This time, that didn’t happen. That’s what people were fearing.”
He had a crane coming Friday to start repairs.
“We’ll get through this,” Bobelis said.
Here’s how high Milton’s surge was
A dangerous storm surge accompanied Milton’s arrival in Florida, piling water ashore in areas south of Tampa. Forensic meteorologists and National Hurricane Center investigators will have to work diligently in the days and weeks ahead to determine exactly how high the water got in areas that lack tide gauges. That’s an important part of post-storm analysis, which helps meteorologists refine models for future surge predictions.
Both Naples and Fort Myers saw waters rise by 5 to 6 feet. The surge in Fort Myers ranked as the second-highest on record, only trailing that of Hurricane Ian in 2022. Three of the city’s biggest surges on record have occurred in the past three years.
There are no tidal gauges between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, so before investigations take place, it’s impossible to know just how high floodwaters rose. It’s likely that a surge of at least 8 to 10 feet occurred around Sarasota and Venice.
Tampa Bay was extremely fortunate to escape the intense surge. Because the storm center passed to the south, an “anti-surge,” or outward push of water, ensued because of offshore winds. At St. Petersburg, water levels dropped two feet lower than normal.
In East Bay in Tampa Bay, a staggering 4.9 foot anti-surge took place.
Crane crashes into downtown building in ‘resilient’ St. Petersburg
A high-rise construction crane broke apart during Hurricane Milton and crashed into a building across the street in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Mike Carlson/AP)
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — On Thursday morning, downtown residents emerged from their high-rise apartments to find the storm had tossed an enormous construction crane into the historic building that houses the Tampa Bay Times, littering several blocks with bricks and debris. Police cordoned off the street, and at either end were gathered small crowds of neighbors who said they heard or saw the crane fall overnight.
“I heard a crash,” said Timothy Lawler, 69, a retired business owner who lives blocks away. “It was quite frightening.” Lawler’s apartment building had minor leaks, ceiling damage in the lobby and a broken window, but the crane was far worse.
“This is a disaster,” Lawler said as he took photos of the crumpled crane.
Before the storm, he had read reports that officials knew the crane couldn’t withstand high winds but didn’t have time to take it down. He wished they had tried harder. “Someone should have foreseen this. It was a nice old building. It’s crushed,” he said.
But Lawler was relieved to see Tampa Bay escape other serious damage as the hurricane shifted south. “That saved us in St. Pete, but the beaches were already destroyed, and it’s not going to be any prettier,” he said. “The coasts are shot. They only got some of the debris cleaned up. The governor and the rest of them busted their butts, but there’s only so many hours in the day.”
Lawler predicted the storm wouldn’t change people’s minds about the safety of living in Tampa Bay. “People here are resilient,” he said, and “we dodged the bomb.”
Photos: Debris and flooding around Tampa
Washington Post staff
(Kathleen Flynn/For the Washington Post)
John Cannon walks through debris covering the road after Hurricane Milton swept through Apollo Beach, Fla.
(Kathleen Flynn/For the Washington Post)
Floodwaters block a street in the wake of Hurricane Milton in Palm River-Clair Mel, Fla.
(Kathleen Flynn/For the Washington Post) A tree blocks a street in downtown Tampa.
At least 6 people died in Florida during storm, officials say
Ben Brasch and Victoria Bisset
As of midmorning Thursday, officials said at least six people had died across Florida during the storm. That number could change as rescue crews fan out across the state.
Four of those deaths were a result of tornadoes Milton spawned Wednesday before making landfall. Two tornadoes struck St. Lucie County on Florida’s central Atlantic coast, county officials said early Thursday. Homes and buildings received “significant damage” across the county and in the city of Port St. Lucie, home to about 230,000 people roughly 30 miles north of West Palm Beach.
In St. Petersburg, Police Chief Anthony Holloway said during a Thursday-morning briefing that two people had died there during the storm.
One was a medical death, he said. The second person was found dead in a park, and their cause of death is being determined by the medical examiner.
Much More (Newest and most important items will be listed first. I’ll have many updates as Thursday rolls along):
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is some more September 2024 climatology (Prior reports are listed on older daily diary blogs for each calendar day.):
Here is More Climate News from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)