Hurricane Milton lands in Florida as Category 3 storm bringing powerful winds and heavy rain

10TV news at 11: begins with breaking news tonight hurricane Milton has officially made landfall this is a live look right now from Fort Fort Meers Florida where the worst of the storm is good evening and thank you for joining us tonight at 11 I'm Yolanda Harris now that storm made landfall around 8:30 this evening near cesta Kee Florida as a category 3 hurricane we have Team coverage tonight of this storm but we're going to start with chief meteorologist Jerry Marts and Jerry what is the storm doing right now at this hour it's still wreaking havoc

across much of Central Florida making landfall as you mentioned about two and a half hours ago notice the disparity across the southern part of the storm and across the north exceptionally heavy rain dangerous wind still occurring all the way from Tampa up toward Orlando south of that where the storm made landfall we're watching that dry air coming back in and weakening the southern part but still a very large uh storm across the central part of the state and it still is going to be occurring overnight and really some more damage we're going to go back

quickly looking back to about time that made landfall just west of Sarasota that being the case around 8:30 p.m. notice again the storm putting down exceptionally heavy rain North around Tampa where excessive flooding is occurring and will continue for the next couple of hours quick look at the forecast continues for the overnight hours till about 3:00 or 4 in the morning that's when that rain band and the strongest winds begin to move from Orlando up toward Daytona Beach finally the storm exits Florida very early in the day tomorrow with some leftover showers and storms behind

that but cleanup will begin in the light of day tomorrow and probably go on many spots for days or weeks to come our local weather comparison could not be better we will track the chance of showers however in your 7-Day 10 weather impact forecast coming up all right thank you Jerry well tonight Florida's governor says there had been 19 tornadoes confirmed across the state and 116 tornado warnings issued from Hurricane Milton local Reports say there were multiple fatalities from a tornado outbreak in St Lucy County Florida which is on the E e coast of the

state right now more than 1.6 million homes and businesses have lost power due to Milton and those numbers are only expected to climb tonight Tampa's mayor summed up the Night by saying quote the next few hours are going to be rough lead Waldman is there waterers come up I am scared to death of some of these storm surge levels the values are absolutely dangerous and deadly as weather officials say hide from the wind run from the water if you're going to take that kind of risk then uh it be best to just write your name

on your clothing so we can identify you nearly half of hurricane related deaths are from storm surge according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration but as hurricane Milton Bears down on the Sunshine State Floridians are out of time to run don't try to go out now don't try to say I got to get out of here and get to a shelter because you you will die already the Sunshine State Report reported the most tornado warnings in a day on record we've seen reports of damage lots of images of those tornadoes and some of them

have been quite long lasting as well uh which is not typical for tornadoes associated with hurricanes one family in Fort Meyers was inside their house when a tornado ripped through their neighborhood we all started going for the hallway didn't even make it there in time started D and I heard a piece of glass crack and suck the whole roof off and I felt the thing suck me up and I grabbed my kid and my wife and hunker down Milton is set to leave behind extensive damage yet First Responders can't go out to assess or perform

life-saving operations until the wind dies down this is a matter of life and death and I can't put it any more bluntly or directly than that in Tampa Florida I'm Lee Waldman reporting