St. Pete is only 52 miles from Siesta Key so they were getting hurricane force winds most of the evening. 

Got this from my sister-in-law...

Largo Medical Canter had windows blow out. Lost power. Generators in the basement under water. Vented patients moved to ED because ED on separate circuit. 

 

There is damage in the retirement community I live in. Will not know what condition my place is in until later today. 

At 200 AM EDT (0600 UTC), the center of Hurricane Milton was located
inland near latitude 28.1 North, longitude 81.3 West. Milton is
moving toward the east-northeast near 16 mph (26 km/h), and this
general motion is expected to continue through this afternoon, 
followed by a turn toward the east tonight.  On the forecast track, 
the center of Milton will continue to move across the central part 
of the Florida during the next few hours, and emerge off the east 
coast of Florida around sunrise.

Maximum sustained winds are near 90 mph (150 km/h) with higher
gusts.  Milton is forecast to maintain hurricane intensity while
crossing Florida this morning.  After moving into the Atlantic, 
Milton is expected to gradually lose tropical characteristics and 
slowly weaken.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the 
center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 255 miles 
(405 km).  A sustained wind of 59 mph (95 km/h) and a gust of 76 mph 
(122 km/h) was recently reported at a NASA weather station at Cape 
Canaveral.  A sustained wind of 58 mph (93 km/h) and a gust of 75 
mph (121 km/h) was recently reported at Daytona Beach International 
Airport.  A sustained wind of 39 mph (63 km/h) and a gust of 63 mph 
(101 km/h was recently reported at Melbourne International Airport. 
A sustained wind of 33 mph (53 km/h) and a gust to 54 mph (87 km/h

1. A large area of life-threatening storm surge is occurring along
portions of the west-central coast of the Florida Peninsula and
southwest Florida.  Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied
by damaging waves.  Water levels will remain elevated into Thursday
morning.

2. Damaging and life-threatening hurricane-force winds, especially
in gusts, will spread inland across portions of the central Florida
Peninsula to the Florida east coast within the Hurricane Warning
area overnight and early Thursday.  Residents should be prepared to
take shelter in an interior room and away from windows.

3. Heavy rainfall across the Florida Peninsula through Thursday
continues to bring the risk of catastrophic and life-threatening
flash and urban flooding along with moderate to major river
flooding, especially in areas where coastal and inland flooding
combine to increase the overall flood threat.

6 hours ago, swamprat said:

Heard a report that the top just got ripped off of Tropicana Field. 

 

 

I will post pics when I get a chance, but I was lucky as all get out, as was my sister. She has a large live oak that fell away from her house. The lake has never been near this high and I lived next door for 22 years. It came within 6 feet of getting in here.

My sister-in-law was able to get into the park and my home. The lattice at the bottom of the structure was blown away and there were flakes around my skylights, vent fans, and solar dome, but no sign of water intrusion. Still no power. Two places directly across the street from me were severely damaged. One had lost it's entire roof. Pinellas County officials have most main arteries closed to prevent people from attempting to get home while emergency repairs are going on to the county infrastructure. 

My daughter and her husband are unable to get back to their place, but they have reports of no exterior damage to their condo. They are on the ground floor and Helene had them sweating with water less than 4 inches from intrusion before it started receding. Her best friend had a neighbor's tree land on her house in Dunedin. No injuries, but they were taking on water last night. 

I believe the pool was damaged, too. It appears to be losing water. It was overflowing last night. 

One of my friends from Naples owns a restaurant, she posted the following and this means things in Naples, right by the gulf, were not near as bad as they could have been.

We are all safe, no damage ! Praying for Tampa and everyone affected by Milton.

We are opening at 3 PM today. Happy hour 4-7, live music with Joey Piano man at 8pm. Business is back to normal, we have power too if you need to charge up!

Liki tiki Naples is open NOW, happy hour 4-7, karaoke tonight 6-9!

5 minutes ago, theguru said:

One of my friends from Naples owns a restaurant, she posted the following and this means things in Naples, right by the gulf, were not near as bad as they could have been.

We are all safe, no damage ! Praying for Tampa and everyone affected by Milton.

We are opening at 3 PM today. Happy hour 4-7, live music with Joey Piano man at 8pm. Business is back to normal, we have power too if you need to charge up!

Liki tiki Naples is open NOW, happy hour 4-7, karaoke tonight 6-9!

Happy hour and karaoke will solve anything.

Just now, nkypete said:

Happy hour and karaoke will solve anything.

I know this is all very serious but yes you do have to celebrate your wins.  Aqua is very close to the Gulf of Mexico, I thought it was going to get washed out.  Instead, business as usual and that is a small win.

Got this text From Duke Energy.

We do not yet have an estimated time for when power will be restored in your area because crews are still assessing damage from Milton to provide you with the most accurate information possible. However, we expect to finish our assessment tomorrow, Oct 11, and will share your initial restoration estimate later that afternoon. If you are not signed up to receive outage alerts, you can visit duk.us/05 for updates after that time.

Won't be going home at least for another day.

Over 4 million Florida accounts were without power after the storm had cleared. 880K have been restored as of 3 pm today. About 10 million Floridians were affected. There are over 50,000 linemen working the problem. 

Duke Energy got their assessment done.

Duke Energy: The initial estimated time for power to be back on for the majority of customers in your area is 11:59PM, Tuesday, Oct 15th. Many will have service restored before then. Those w/ more extensive or isolated damage may require additional time.

 

We ended up getting power back at my place on Sunday, October 13. However, since I have to stay at home now to take care of Mrs. S, I work from home and need the internet. Spectrum was not restored until Tuesday the 15th. We returned home on the 16th to find minor damage to my place. I have minor gutter damage and a small section of my footer was caved.

Although we had no water damage evident inside, there was evidence of the place shaking during high winds. Paint flakes were on the floor and furniture under my skylights, solar tube, and exhaust vents. I had the roof inspected, but we won't know until it rains whether we have leaks caused by the shaking. It has not rained here since Milton went inland on Thursday the 10th. In fact it has been cool, for Florida, and beautiful. Under Florida law, I can submit a claim for hurricane damage up to a year after the storm happened.

The high winds that caused damage to my place was not caused by hurricane force winds. It appears a tornado went through the community I live in. The place across the street had it's carport torn away. The home next to it was severely damaged. The next one was untouched. The one on the other side it was leveled. The twister bounced around, severely damaging or destroying about 15 homes. 

I was incredibly lucky.