Hurricane Milton slams Florida: What you need to know

After churning across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week, Milton made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, around 8:30 pm Wednesday as a powerful Category 3 hurricane with up to 120 mile-per-hour winds. The storm — and the many tornadoes it spawned — tore the roofs off of homes and a major baseball stadium and left more than 3 million people without power across the peninsula. Several fatalities have been reported so far. 

Sarasota is slightly south of Tampa, which was spared from the eye of the hurricane and extreme storm surge. Remarkably, winds from Milton actually caused a so-called reverse storm surge in Tampa Bay, which is when seawater recedes. But Tampa, the region’s largest city, still saw severe flooding: Milton dumped an astonishing 17 inches of rain in the region on Wednesday, causing what some have described as a 1,000-year flooding event. 

Sarasota, meanwhile, recorded at least 10 feet of storm surge, which sent seawater rushing into the city. Surge is typically the deadliest part of a hurricane. It floods neighborhoods and can collapse homes and drown people. Prior to landfall, Milton also spawned an outbreak of tornadoes, prompting the National Weather Service to issue more than a hundred tornado warnings.

As of Thursday morning, Milton was still a Category 1 storm just off the east coast of Florida, though it’s expected to weaken later today as it moves farther offshore. 

What’s especially gutting is that Milton — the ninth Atlantic hurricane during what government officials predicted would be an especially active season — struck parts of Florida that are still reeling from the impact of Hurricane Helene. Helene made landfall just two weeks ago, killing more than 200 people across the South and Appalachia and a dozen people in the Tampa Bay area. Milton prompted a historic evacuation of western Florida. 

On one hand, Hurricane Milton is highly unusual. As I wrote earlier this week, the hurricane intensified incredibly quickly, transforming from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in roughly 24 hours. With wind speeds pushing 180 miles per hour earlier in the week and very low pressure, it’s one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. 

Then again, extreme storms like Milton are exactly what the world’s leading climate scientists have been predicting now for years. Burning fossil fuels is not just warming the air but also the ocean, and hot water is the key ingredient for super-powerful hurricanes. The threat becomes even greater when you consider that more and more people are moving to coastal Florida.   

The toll of Hurricane Milton will become clearer in the days ahead, and we’ll be here to keep you in the loop. In the meantime, here are a handful of stories that really helped me understand the threat posed by superstorms and how we can be better prepared for them.

As Milton descends, Florida prepares for uncharted territory

The back-to-back phenomena of Hurricanes Helene and Milton spell disaster for communities in Florida that just barely started to rebuild and recover from Helene’s damage. A climatologist for the Florida Climate Center explains this uniquely destructive moment, and why we ought to find some reassurance as emergency responses and preparations get better and more efficient. 

Just how doomed is home insurance?

Insured losses from natural disasters around the world in the first half of the year have already topped $60 billion, 54 percent higher than the 10-year average — and that’s before the estimated tens of billions of dollars in claims from Hurricanes Helene and Milton are added to the tally. Now, as the weather gets warmer and storms worsen, insurers are raising rates to eye-popping figures or refusing to insure some homeowners altogether. 

Is FEMA messing up?

Milton arrives as communities continue to recover from Hurricane Helene, which caused flooding, days-long power outages, and fatalities across six states, including Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. In Helene’s wake, a litany of questions has arisen over the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in getting essential help to survivors. So, what does a good government response to horrific natural disasters look like in a time of escalating dangers driven by climate change? 

Donald Trump’s many, many lies about Hurricane Helene, debunked

Since Hurricane Helene inundated parts of western North Carolina late last month, former President Donald Trump has seized on the tragedy to perpetuate lies about the federal response, sowing chaos and confusion as he repeatedly and falsely suggests that the federal government is purposely neglecting areas with Republican voters, that it is funneling emergency aid to migrants instead of disaster response, and that it’s giving hurricane victims just $750 in support. Experts say the disinformation could harm relief efforts and deter survivors from seeking assistance.

This story originally appeared in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.