Hurricane Milton barreled through the midsection of the Florida Peninsula Thursday morning, lashing Flagler County with tropical-storm-force winds (and a few hurricane-force gusts) and up top 19 inches of rain in parts of the county.
Damage overall was mostly minor, with upward 102 houses in Palm Coast suffering wind damage and some houses in Palm Coast and Flagler Beach getting flooding, but not nearly to the extent that Hurricane Ian affected Flagler Beach two years ago, or Hurricane Irma did in 2017.
Of the 102 affected houses in Palm Coast at last count today, only two suffered major damage, 19 suffered minor damage, and the rest suffered less than minor damage–“mostly cosmetic,” as a city spokesperson put it.
According to Bob Pickering the weather specialist at Flagler County Emergency Management, there was a recording of 76 miles per hour winds in Flagler Beach, 58 mph in northeast Palm Coast, 43 mph in west Palm Coast, and 92 mph in Marineland. Rain totals for the duration of the storm were 16 inches in Bunnell, 19 inches in the Mondex, or Daytona North, and between 12 and almost 14 inches in various parts of Palm Coast, except in southwest Palm Coast, where the gauge recorded a total of 16 inches–then broke, according to Pickering.
Power companies, including Florida Power and Light, operated at sharp speed to restore power after more than 3 million customers lost power in the state, including some 50,000 customers in Flagler County. By today, the numbers were down to 400,000 without power statewide, and about 1,000, or 1.4 percent of customers, in Flagler County.
The following is a series of pictures and video from different sources documenting the storm’s effects across the county, taken during and after the storm.
