On Wednesday night, Hurricane Milton tore into Florida’s Gulf Coast with a fury that left its mark on Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
The powerful winds from the storm ripped sections of the roof’s fabric off the stadium, exposing the vulnerability of one of Major League Baseball’s few domed arenas. Fortunately, the structure’s beams held firm, and first responders who had been staging with cots inside the stadium reported no injuries, according to ABC News.
Milton’s landfall came near Siesta Key, just south of Sarasota, around 8:30 p.m., with maximum sustained winds reaching 120 mph. While Tampa managed to avoid a direct hit, the storm still packed a punch as it moved inland. By 10:30 p.m., St. Petersburg was being battered by gusts as high as 91 mph, while nearby areas like Egmont Channel saw winds of 105 mph, and the Sarasota–Bradenton International Airport recorded speeds of 102 mph, according to WFLA.
Roof is gone at Tropicana Field #milton #rays
Video by: Nick Friedman@mysuncoast @WESH pic.twitter.com/VME6Um351J
— Nick Burch (@PageWebber) October 10, 2024
The hurricane’s impact was devastating on a broader scale as well, plunging nearly two million Floridians into darkness as the power grid struggled to cope with the storm’s intensity, according to PowerOutage.com. For a state all too familiar with hurricanes, this was yet another reminder of nature’s unpredictable wrath.
Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays, holds the distinction of being the only non-retractable domed stadium in Major League Baseball and the only indoor venue that hosts year-round games. Its design, usually a fortress against the elements, couldn’t fully withstand the brute force of Milton, underscoring the hurricane’s intensity even as it lost some strength upon landfall.
Earlier in the day, the National Weather Service in Miami had already been tracking the storm’s destructive potential. They observed at least four tornadoes, including a “multi-vortex tornado,” ripping through the area as storm surges began to hit the southwestern Florida coast. Tornado warnings were issued across multiple cities, adding another layer of chaos to the already dire hurricane and storm surge alerts that stretched along the coast, according to CBS News.
Tropicana field is losing its roof #HurricaneMilton pic.twitter.com/z8F1HeT08f
— Seth Weaver (@seth_weaver6) October 10, 2024
Despite Hurricane Milton’s downgrade from a Category 5 storm to a Category 3 by the time it reached Florida’s shores, its potential for destruction remained significant. Meteorologist Jeff Masters told CBS News that some of the most devastating hurricanes in history, like Katrina, were also in a weakened state when they caused the most damage. Katrina had been downgraded to a Category 3 when it made landfall, yet still resulted in a staggering $190 billion in damage. Masters emphasized that Milton, though reduced in strength, still had a massive storm surge “baked in” that would inevitably lead to unprecedented destruction in parts of Florida.
