Al Jazeera :
Hurricane Milton has weakened further and is now a Category 1 hurricane, according to the US National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) latest advisory.
The storm struck Florida as a Category 3 storm late on Wednesday after weakening from a Category 5 storm, leaving more than three million homes and businesses without power and killing at least four people.
The hurricane is pounding cities with ferocious winds and rain, whipping up a barrage of tornadoes and forcing hundreds of thousands of coastal residents to evacuate inland.
US President Joe Biden warned earlier Milton is expected to be one of the “most and worst destructive hurricanes to hit Florida in over a century”.
The storm came less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the region, which has not suffered a direct hurricane strike in more than 100 years.
There has been significant damage in west-central Florida, including in the community of Plant City, says an official.
“One of the most profound things I’m seeing is the flooding. We have flooding in places and to levels that I’ve never seen, and I’ve lived in this community for my entire life,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said in a video posted online.