Thursday Evening Hurricane Milton Updates: Death Toll Rises, Clean Up To Take A Long Time

The yellow house was toppled off its stilts by
Hurricane Milton. In the foreground are the front
steps of a house swept away by Hurricane 
Helene a couple weeks ago.

 Hurricane Milton is gone, but certainly not forgotten. 

The death toll had reached 11 by late this afternoon.  

That could well go higher, but the good news is there are not a lot of reports of people being unaccounted for. So for the potential for another tragedy on the scale of recent Hurricane Helene seems remote. 

There were at least a couple impressive rescues. Officers found a 14 year old boy floating in floodwaters on a piece of fencing in Hillsborough County and rescued him, the Associated Press said. 

A fishing boat broke down in the Gulf of Mexico as the hurricane approached and a Coast Guard helicopter found the man from the fishing boat floating on an ice chest and rescued him.  

That doesn't mean there's lots of trouble.  As of this afternoon, three million homes and businesses remained without power. Some places might not get electricity again for weeks. 

STORM SURGE BAD, NOT WORST

Still, the worst case scenario was averted because Hurricane Milton came ashore south of Tampa.  Had it come in a little north of Tampa, the storm surge would have been drawn up into Tampa Bay, with devastating results.

Instead, being north of the storm center, Tampa experienced east and northeast winds, which actually pulled water out of the bay. So no real storm surge there. Actually it was an anti-surge, as water levels in Tampa Bay actually fell to two to four feet below normal, thanks to those intense east winds. 

The storm surge did strike communities further south. As the Washington Post reports, the storm surge in Naples and Fort Myers was five to six feet. Not as bad as some forecasts, but still terrible. 

The surge in Fort Myers was the second highest on record. Only the epic surge in Hurricane Ian back in 2022 was worse. With Hurricane Helene just a couple weeks ago the top three storm surges in Fort Myers have all happened since 2022.

It doesn't help that the "normal" sea level around Fort Myers has risen by six inches since 1990, thanks in part to climate change. 

There aren't a lot of tidal gauges between Fort Myers and Tampa, in cities like Bradenton, Sarasota and Venice.  Those areas probably had a higher storm surge than Fort Myers, and meteorologists will investigate how high the water got there. 

The best guess is Venice and Sarasota suffered through an eight to ten foot storm surge. 

It's amazing that a difference of probably ten miles made such a difference in the outcome with this storm. 

FORECAST ACCURACY, WHAT'S NEXT

Just as amazing is the forecast accuracy. Forecasts the National Hurricane Center made five days ago on where Hurricane Milton would make landfall were only a dozen or so miles off from where it actually landed.

That's an incredibly accurate forecast for a hurricane that far in advance. Hurricanes paths are notoriously hard to predict.  Most hurricanes land 100 or more miles away from what forecasts indicate five days ahead of time

There's really no town in Florida that was completely flattened by Hurricane Milton or nearly so. But between storm surges, flooding, wind damage and tornadoes, the widespread destruction in Florida from  the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic shores, from north of Tampa and Orlando south almost to the Keys, the damage has to be in the billions of dollars. 

Again. 

No wonder the insurance industry is in such a mess these days. 

I'm not getting into climate change in this post in regards to hurricanes Helene and Milton, but I'll address it in a future post. 

 Also, note that hurricane season isn't over. That doesn't officially end until November 30. And Florida has been hit by hurricanes into November. Hurricane Nicole made landfall in Vero Beach as a Category 1 on November 10, 2022. And Hurricane Kate hit the Florida Panhandle on November 21, 1985 as a Category 2 storm. 

For now, there's no immediate threats for any new hurricanes. Milton is no longer a hurricane and was dissipating northeast of the Bahamas this evening. 

There are signs of renewed tropical activity in late October or early November. But that prospect is uncertain, and even if something happens, we obviously don't know where it would happen or how big it would get.