Hurricane Milton Tears Off Roof at Tropicana Field

On Wednesday night, the fierce winds of Hurricane Milton tore sections of the roof fabric from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, although the beams remained intact.

“First responders were staging with cots inside the stadium. There were no reported injuries,” ABC News reported.

Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, just south of Sarasota, at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, with winds reaching 120 mph, while Tampa avoided a direct impact. By 10:30 p.m., winds were recorded at 91 mph in St. Petersburg, 105 mph at Egmont Channel, and 102 mph at Sarasota–Bradenton International Airport, according to WFLA.

By midnight, nearly two million Floridians statewide had lost power, as reported by PowerOutage.com.

Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays, is the only non-retractable domed stadium in Major League Baseball and serves as the league’s only year-round indoor venue.

“Earlier in the day, the National Weather Service in Miami observed at least four twisters, including a ‘multi-vortex tornado,” as meteorologists reported storm surge starting to arrive along the southwestern Florida coast,” CBSD News reported. “Tornado warnings were issued for multiple cities, adding to hurricane and storm surge warnings already in place for many of those same places.”

Even though the hurricane had downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 3 by the time it made landfall, scientist Jeff Masters told CBS News, “Some of the most significant disasters in hurricane history involved weakening storms. Katrina was losing strength as it approached land and caused $190 billion in damage. It was a Category 3 at landfall after being a Category 5. Now we have another former Category 5 that will be a Category 3 at landfall, and the storm surge is already set. It’s going to cause unprecedented damage in this part of Florida.”

Search

Recent Posts

Social Media