PETERSBURG, Florida, Oct 10 (Askume) – Despite dire warnings and mandatory evacuation orders, residents of St. Petersburg, Florida, who decided to prepare for Hurricane Milton emerged from their homes on Thursday morning to find their town largely unscathed despite a fierce storm that moved in overnight.
Many city streets along Tampa Bay escaped flooding, boats remained moored at city wharves, and damage to downtown buildings was limited.
That doesn’t mean the city escaped unscathed. The storm’s strong winds tore a large hole in the roof of St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, scattered tree branches across several streets and knocked down power lines.
Still, Steve Kixie, 40, who lives across from the stadium, said the overall damage he saw wasn’t as severe as expected. “I thought it was going to be bad.”
The strong winds also toppled a construction crane, which tore off a corner of the Johnson-Pope Building on South First Avenue, home to the Tampa Bay Times. A fierce rumble spread from one end of the street to the other.
“For me, it was shocking and crazy to see that,” said Alberta Moenti, 27, who lives in a damaged studio nearby. “It looked like it collapsed, the building got hit by it and was a little bit destroyed.”
Apprentice electrician Chase Pierce, 25, who was examining the damage caused by the crane, said he was surprised and relieved to see minimal damage to the surrounding area despite watching the crane fall.
In the days before Milton makes landfall south of Tampa Bay, forecasters and political leaders are talking about the coming storm in a historical context.
It intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane, the highest category, in about a day, and appeared to be the first major hurricane in a century to directly hit Tampa Bay, bringing a massive storm surge that could flood densely populated areas.
As a result, the storm weakened somewhat as it approached south of Tampa Bay Wednesday night, and the expected storm surge never materialized.
Some streets in the Pierce neighborhood in west St. Petersburg, near the Barack Obama Presidential Library, were flooded with up to two feet (60 centimeters) of water, he said. He took advantage of the situation and boated half a mile (800 meters) down the street.
Pierce said he saw some homes flooded, though the water stopped right near his home. Dozens of branches littered the street, some as thick as a lifter’s thigh.
Traffic lights were turned off on some city streets, and one set of traffic lights on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue was hung about 5 feet (1.5 m) above the ground.
The seawall in front of the Vinoy Pier collapsed and took a sidewalk with it.
“Wow, the sidewalks are gone,” said Barbara Deninger as she walked her golden retriever and watched workers build barricades.
Pierce and his girlfriend, Kelsey Jacobson, 27, said they saw the transformer explode, sending blue sparks flying. A power line was down in their backyard, but he said he was grateful for the way the storm helped St. Petersburg.
“If this is all we have, I feel very lucky,” Pierce said. “I still have my house, my car, everything.”
