In pictures: Hurricane Milton, ‘the storm of the century’, makes landfall in Florida

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday night, bringing tornadoes, floods, and the risk of storm surges, according to US media reports.

Initially a category 5 storm (the highest on the hurricane scale), Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast as a category 3, and since has lessened to a category 1, authorities said.

But despite losing some of its potency to wind shear as it neared the coast, Milton is still one of the strongest hurricanes to strike the US mainland in recent memory, according to ‘The Guardian’ and has been described by president Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”.

Photo: Milton by NASA

More than 3 million households and businesses have lost power across Florida, according to poweroutage.us, with the worst-hit communities mostly in the Tampa Bay Area, according to CNN.

With winds of over 100 mph (160 kph), Milton produced a barrage of tornadoes that destroyed about 125 homes, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, according to an AP News report.

St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, that there were “several fatalities” though he couldn’t say how many people have died.

Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people, with dire warnings such as Tampa Bay mayor’s Jane Castor who said “ If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die."

Milton will remain a hurricane as it passes across Florida to the east on Thursday, crossing the popular tourist destination of Orlando before emerging into the Atlantic, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NHC) said.

“Heavy rainfall across the Florida peninsula through Thursday brings the risk of catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding along with moderate to major river flooding,” the NHC warned in an advisory.

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