Powerful storm slams into coast, bringing deadly storm surge to Sarasota, Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers

• Hurricane Milton – latest updates

A weakening but still tremendously powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night as a category 3, leaving millions of homes without power, while bringing “catastrophic” winds likely to cause significant property damage.

The hurricane, described earlier in the day by Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”, made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, just after 8.30pm ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said. The storm brought potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf coast, particularly Sarasota and Fort Myers, but largely spared more densely populated areas such as Tampa and St Petersburg to the north.