Hurricane Milton’s powerful winds overnight Wednesday severely damaged the roof of the Tampa Bay Rays’ home ballpark, Tropicana Field, which had been set for use by workers responding to the storm.
Overhead television and still images of the domed stadium in St. Petersburg showed massive swaths of its paneled roof were torn off by 100-plus mph winds.
The stadium’s playing field and stands could be seen in that overheard footage, through where panels once were. It wasn’t immediately clear if the stadium’s interior suffered any major damage.
The high winds also toppled a construction crane at 400 Central Ave., in St. Petersburg, about three-quarters of a mile from Tropicana Field, officials said.
There were no injuries immediately reported from that area of downtown St. Petersburg, according to a city statement.
As recently as noon on Tuesday, the Florida Division of Emergency Management said it was “establishing a 10,000-person base camp at Tropicana Field to support ongoing debris operations and post-landfall responders.”
The roof was designed to absorb winds of up to 110 mph, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. And with forecasted gusts topping that standard, workers and equipment were removed from Tropicana Field, he added.
“As it became clear that there was going to be something of that magnitude that was going to be within the distance, they redeployed them out of Tropicana,” DeSantis told reporters on Thursday. “There were no state assets that were in Tropicana Field.”
