Hurricane Milton lashed Florida’s Gulf Coast with flooding rain and winds of 120 miles per hour that left homes — and, in some cases, full neighborhoods — drenched, muddied and dilapidated. At least 24 deaths have been blamed on the storm, officials confirmed to CBS News.
Satellite images illustrate the scope of the damage in coastal communities along the western part of the Florida peninsula, near the Sarasota barrier island of Siesta Key where Milton made landfall Wednesday, Oct. 9, as a powerful Category 3 hurricane.
The images, captured one day after the storm struck the region, show beaches in Siesta Key and Anna Maria Island, another barrier island just north of Milton’s landfall site, darkened and damaged, each riddled with murky sand that appears to push inland toward the surrounding streets and buildings. They …