The mega-hurricane hit Florida on Thursday night – leaving a trail of destruction behind. The dreaded storm surge did not occur, but tornadoes caused deaths.
It’s 5:39 p.m. on Wednesday and the Sarasota Police Department is off duty. The wind strength is too strong “to allow emergency operations”. The patrol cars are parked. “We will now wait out the storm, just like you, and when it passes we will begin the rescue operation.”
On Wednesday, the entire country looked anxiously towards West Florida, where Hurricane Milton struck earlier in the evening than forecast by meteorologists. Hurricanes are violent and difficult to measure. Daring pilots, the so-called “Hurricane Hunters” of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Services NOAA, steer their heavy aircraft through the clouds into the eye of the storm in order to sink their probes into it. Hurricanes tend to bounce around, and Milton, a category five hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico, ultimately hit Florida’s west coast as a category three hurricane around 8 p.m. local time.
Just north of Sarasota, Milton made landfall. When the town was in the eye of the storm, the torrential rain stopped. Residents reported eerie silence. “Crickets chirped and frogs croaked,” wrote the New York Times, “and mosquitoes feasted on those people who went outside to marvel at the silence.” Shortly after 9 p.m., the air swirled again – and the rain returned.
