Your support helps us to tell the story
Hurricane Milton has ripped the roof off the Tropicana Field Stadium, home to the Tampa Bay Rays, dramatic pictures and footage show.
Winds of over 100mph battered St. Petersburg, Florida, Wednesday night as the baseball stadium’s roof, made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, was torn away.
Drone images show debris littered across the field, which was supposed to be a base for 10,000 responders supporting the clean-up effort after the storm passed. The cots and beds for the responders are visible in the pictures.
The stadium’s roof, supported by 180 miles of cables connected by struts, was built to withstand winds of up to 115 miles per hour, according to the team’s media guide.
Storm chaser and journalist Jonathan Petramala filmed the damage on a drone and told CNN the stadium “had no chance.”
“It’s surreal to see the roof shredded like that,” he said. “I was able to get my hands on a piece of that roof, it feels like thick vinyl. It had no chance against those winds of Hurricane Milton.”
The damage comes just as the Rays finished the season at the Tropicana Field last month. Games cannot be played there without a roof due to the field’s lack of drainage system, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
After much back and forth, a new $1.3 billion stadium for the team was scheduled to be built in St Petersburg but won’t be ready until 2028 at the earliest, according to Florida’s Business Observer. The team has been trying for almost 20 years to secure a deal for a “desperately needed” new ballpark in the Tampa Bay area, the outlet reported.
It’s unclear if the roof will be fixed by the time the team opens the 2025 season in March.
Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday night near Sarasota County’s Siesta Key, bringing multiple tornadoes, 28ft waves, strong winds, heavy rainfall, and devastating storm surge.
Multiple deaths have already been confirmed after dozens of tornadoes spawned in St Lucie County, seeing a tornado strike Spanish Lakes Country Club retirement village in Fort Pierce, county Sheriff Keith Pearson said.
More than 3.2 million homes and businesses in Florida have been left powerless, with those in the west-central region the worst impacted.
After landfall, Milton has weakened to a Category 1 hurricane and is moving off Florida’s east coast – with residents still battling against brutal winds and storm surge.
