Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton bar­reled in­to the At­lantic Ocean on Thurs­day af­ter plow­ing across Flori­da as a Cat­e­go­ry 3 storm, pound­ing cities with fe­ro­cious winds and rain, whip­ping up a bar­rage of tor­na­does and caus­ing an un­known num­bers of deaths. It com­pound­ed the mis­ery wrought by He­lene while spar­ing Tam­pa a di­rect hit.

The storm tracked to the south in the fi­nal hours and made land­fall Wednes­day night in Sies­ta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilo­me­ters) south of Tam­pa. The sit­u­a­tion in the Tam­pa area was still a ma­jor emer­gency as St. Pe­ters­burg record­ed over 16 inch­es (41 cen­time­ters) of rain, prompt­ing the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice to warn of flash flood­ing there as well as oth­er parts of west­ern and cen­tral Flori­da.

The fab­ric that serves as the roof of Trop­i­cana Field, home of the Tam­pa Bay Rays base­ball team in St. Pe­ters­burg, was ripped to shreds by the fierce winds. It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear if there was dam­age in­side. Mul­ti­ple cranes were al­so top­pled in the storm, the weath­er ser­vice said.

St. Pe­ters­burg res­i­dents al­so could no longer get wa­ter from their house­hold taps be­cause a wa­ter main break led the city to shut down ser­vice.

Be­fore Mil­ton even made land­fall, tor­na­does touched down across the state. The Span­ish Lakes Coun­try Club near Fort Pierce, on Flori­da’s At­lantic Coast, was hit par­tic­u­lar­ly hard, with homes de­stroyed and some res­i­dents killed.

“We have lost some life,” St. Lu­cie Coun­ty Sher­iff Kei­th Pear­son told WPBF News, though he wouldn’t say how many peo­ple were killed.

About 125 homes were de­stroyed be­fore the hur­ri­cane came ashore, many of them mo­bile homes in com­mu­ni­ties for se­nior cit­i­zens, said Kevin Guthrie, the di­rec­tor of the Flori­da Di­vi­sion of Emer­gency Man­age­ment.

About 90 min­utes af­ter mak­ing land­fall, Mil­ton was down­grad­ed to a Cat­e­go­ry 2 storm. By ear­ly Thurs­day, the hur­ri­cane was a Cat­e­go­ry 1 storm with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of about 85 mph (135 kph) and leav­ing the state near Cape Canaver­al.

But the dan­ger had not passed: Storm surge re­mained a con­cern in many parts of Flori­da and trop­i­cal storm warn­ings were in place for much of the east-cen­tral coast. Of­fi­cials in hard-hit Pinel­las and Sara­so­ta coun­ties urged peo­ple to stay off the roads, warn­ing of downed pow­er lines, trees in road­ways and blocked bridges.

“The storm may have passed, but it is still dan­ger­ous to be trav­el­ing this morn­ing,” the Sara­so­ta Coun­ty Sher­iff’s Of­fice said in a so­cial me­dia post.

The storm slammed in­to a re­gion still reel­ing two weeks af­ter Hur­ri­cane He­lene flood­ed streets and homes in west­ern Flori­da and left at least 230 peo­ple dead across the South. In many places along the coast, mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties raced to col­lect and dis­pose of de­bris be­fore Mil­ton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and com­pound any dam­age.

Of­fi­cials had is­sued dire warn­ings to flee or face grim odds of sur­vival. By late af­ter­noon, some of­fi­cials said the time had passed for such ef­forts, sug­gest­ing that peo­ple who stayed be­hind hun­ker down in­stead.

ack­ie Cur­nick said she wres­tled with her de­ci­sion to stay at home in Sara­so­ta, just north of where the storm made land­fall. She and her hus­band start­ed pack­ing Mon­day to evac­u­ate, but they strug­gled to find avail­able ho­tel rooms, and the few they came by were too ex­pen­sive.

With a 2-year-old son and a ba­by girl due Oct. 29, Cur­nick said there were too many unan­swered ques­tions if they got in the car and left: where to sleep, if they’d be able to fill up their gas tank, and if they could even find a safe route out of the state.

Video tak­en dur­ing the storm showed howl­ing winds and sheets of rain lash­ing their glass-en­closed swim­ming pool as her son and their dog watched. Trees shook vi­o­lent­ly.

“The thing is it’s so dif­fi­cult to evac­u­ate in a penin­su­la,” she said ahead of the storm. “In most oth­er states, you can go in any di­rec­tion to get out. In Flori­da, there are on­ly so many roads that take you north or south.”

At a news con­fer­ence in Tal­la­has­see, Gov. Ron De­San­tis de­scribed de­ploy­ment of a wide range of re­sources, in­clud­ing 9,000 Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers from Flori­da and oth­er states; over 50,000 util­i­ty work­ers from as far as Cal­i­for­nia; and high­way pa­trol cars with sirens to es­cort gaso­line tankers to re­plen­ish sup­plies so peo­ple could fill up their tanks be­fore evac­u­at­ing.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there will be fa­tal­i­ties. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” De­San­tis said.

Heavy rain and tor­na­does lashed parts of south­ern Flori­da start­ing Wednes­day morn­ing, with con­di­tions de­te­ri­o­rat­ing through­out the day. Six to 12 inch­es (15 to 31 cen­time­ters) of rain, with up to 18 inch­es (46 cen­time­ters) in some places, was ex­pect­ed well in­land, bring­ing the risk of cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing.

One twister touched down Wednes­day morn­ing in the light­ly pop­u­lat­ed Ever­glades and crossed In­ter­state 75. An­oth­er ap­par­ent tor­na­do touched down in Fort My­ers, snap­ping tree limbs and tear­ing a gas sta­tion’s canopy to shreds.

Au­thor­i­ties is­sued manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion or­ders across 15 Flori­da coun­ties with a to­tal pop­u­la­tion of about 7.2 mil­lion peo­ple. By ear­ly af­ter­noon, air­lines had can­celed about 1,900 flights. Sea­World was closed all day Wednes­day, and Walt Dis­ney World and Uni­ver­sal Or­lan­do shut down in the af­ter­noon.

More than 60% of gas sta­tions in Tam­pa and St. Pe­ters­burg were out of gas Wednes­day af­ter­noon, ac­cord­ing to Gas­Bud­dy. De­San­tis said the state’s over­all sup­ply was fine, and high­way pa­trol of­fi­cers were es­cort­ing tanker trucks to re­plen­ish the sup­ply.

Of­fi­cials warned that any­one stay­ing be­hind must fend for them­selves, be­cause first re­spon­ders were not ex­pect­ed to risk their lives at­tempt­ing res­cues at the height of the storm.

St. Pe­ters­burg May­or Ken Welch told res­i­dents to ex­pect long pow­er out­ages and the pos­si­ble shut­down of the sew­er sys­tem.

In Char­lotte Har­bor, about 100 miles (160 kilo­me­ters) south of Tam­pa, clouds swirled and winds gust­ed as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and oth­er be­long­ings. Two weeks ago, He­lene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 me­ters) of wa­ter to the neigh­bor­hood, and its streets re­main filled with wa­ter­logged fur­ni­ture, torn-out dry­wall and oth­er de­bris.

Parks, an au­to tech­ni­cian, planned to flee to his daugh­ter’s home in­land and said his room­mate al­ready left.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t com­ing back,” he said.

TAM­PA, Fla. (AP)