Hurricane Milton in Florida | The death toll rises to 16

(Sarasota) The hurricane Milton caused at least 16 deaths in its wake in Florida, authorities announced, with around 2.5 million homes and businesses remaining without power on Friday despite a less intense disaster than expected.

“We did not experience the worst scenario, but we were affected,” said Ron DeSantis, governor of this southeastern American state, on Friday.

The death toll stands at at least 16: six in St. Lucie County, four in Volusia County, three across Polk and Orange and Citrus counties, two in the city of St. Petersburg, and one in Tampa, according to local authorities.

Milton reached the west coast of Florida on Wednesday evening as a Category 3 hurricane – on the Saffir-Simpson scale of 5 – then made its way inland, before gaining land. Atlantic the following morning.

Its passage caused numerous tornadoes and devastated a region already devastated by the powerful hurricane. Helene about two weeks earlier.

In Siesta Key, in Sarasota Bay where the hurricane made landfall, residents who had evacuated gathered Friday to see the damage.

“We were told it was better than we feared, but when I look closer and take a drive, I see that we have been hit very hard,” said Mark Horner, a 67-year-old resident. , at AFP.

Here, Milton left a landscape of desolation, uprooting trees, flooding streets, tearing off at least one roof, and strewing the locality with various debris.

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 their rapid intensification more likely and increases the risk of more powerful phenomena, scientists warn.

According to an analysis published Friday by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) scientific network, rains from Milton were around 20 to 30% higher due to climate change and its winds 10% more intense.

Without global warming, the hurricane would have made landfall in Florida as a category 2 instead of 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures the intensity of the winds, concluded the WWA.

However, for each increase in category, the risk of damage is generally multiplied by four, estimates the American Oceanic and Atmospheric Observation Agency (NOAA).

Captain

In St. Petersburg, on Tampa Bay, the hurricane tore the roof off the local professional team’s baseball stadium and toppled a crane.

Milton was expected to be “one of the most destructive hurricanes in more than a century in Florida,” Joe Biden warned Wednesday evening.

Two weeks after the hurricane passed through the same region Helenewhich left at least 237 dead across the southeast of the United States (including at least 15 in Florida), this new storm was all the more worrying as the numerous debris caused by the first hurricane were still visible in the streets and could be blown away by the winds.

If the damage is impressive in places, the worst seems to have been avoided, the hurricane having “weakened before making landfall”, noted Thursday the governor of the state, estimating that the marine submersion “was not as significant as that observed for the 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.

The day before, Joe Biden had called on the population to “stay indoors” for the moment, in particular to avoid “downed power lines, debris, and washed out roads”.

The two hurricanes, which occurred a few weeks before an extremely close presidential election, took on a political dimension, with Republicans and Democrats arguing over disaster aid.