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Hurricane Milton hits as authorities struggle to respond

Oct 10, 2024, 5:49am EDT
North America
A palm tree shakes in powerful wind as Hurricane Milton hits in Florida.
Marco Bello/Reuters
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Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida overnight into Thursday, causing huge devastation.

It was downgraded to a Category One storm early on Thursday morning, but is still causing severe damage. The city of Tampa, which lay in the storm’s path, so far appears to have registered the worst: The full impact will not be known until daylight, but the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team saw its stadium roof ripped off, local news reported.

Milton, by some measures one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded, comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the southeastern US.

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President Joe Biden promised whatever support was needed, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster fund faces financial shortages and is not equipped to manage hurricanes in quick succession, Politico reported. Without more funding, the agency could run out of money this month.

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