Hurricane Milton Destroys Roof of Tropicana Field Stadium Near Tampa

The roof of the Tropicana Field is damaged the morning after Hurricane Milton hit the region, in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Oct. 10, 2024. Julio Cortez/AP Photo

Hurricane Milton tore the fabric roof from Tropicana Field, used by the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, and littered the field below with debris, according to aerial photos and video footage.

The hurricane roared onshore near the Sarasota area on Wednesday night as a Category 3 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), bringing winds in excess of 110 mph.

Officials with the Rays said that a handful of “essential personnel” were inside Tropicana Field, located in St. Petersburg as the storm hit. Footage showed the swaths that serve as the domed building’s roof were completely tattered, giving a clear line of sight inside the stadium.

Sections of the roof—some relatively small, some large enough to cover several rows of seats—fell inside the ballpark, the footage shows. No injuries at the stadium were reported.

Footage taken from inside Tropicana Field showed the roof coming apart as debris swirled around as Milton hit the area. In the aftermath of the incident, the frame that supports the fabric roof appeared to be mostly left intact.

Earlier in the week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said there were plans for the ballpark to serve as a “temporary base camp” to support debris cleanup operations and temporarily house some first responders. But those plans were changed as the storm neared, amid concerns the roof would not survive Milton’s wrath, officials said.

“They were relocated,” DeSantis told a news conference on Thursday, referring to the staff at Tropicana Field.

“Tropicana Field is a routine staging area for these things,” he said. “The roof on that ... I think it’s rated for 110 mph and so the forecast changes, but 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. There were no state assets that were inside Tropicana Field.”

Raymond James Stadium, the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL team, was overcome with water, video footage and photos taken during the storm show. That stadium does not have a roof—unlike Tropicana Field.

In Tampa, MacDill Air Force Base, home to the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, was evacuated on Wednesday and is still closed, officials said.

It has about 185 personnel working at an emergency operations center out of Raymond James Stadium. There were 13 KC-135 aircraft evacuated to McConnell Air Force Base, and other aircraft remained in hangars or away on military missions.

DeSantis said at Thursday’s press event that while Milton was significant, the storm did not bring the “worst-case scenario” to Florida. The worst storm surge, he said, appeared to have occurred in Sarasota County, located south of Tampa. There, 8 to 10 feet of surge was reported, he said.

“We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses,” DeSantis said. “The storm was significant, but, thankfully, this was not the worst-case scenario.”

Opened in 1990, Tropicana Field can hold more than 42,700 people. Raymond James Stadium, meanwhile, opened in 1998 and can seat about 75,000.

As of Thursday morning, Milton remained a Category 1 hurricane as the storm’s center remained east of Florida’s coastline, according to the NHC. Tropical storm warnings were still in effect for Florida, parts of southern Georgia, and parts of South Carolina as of Thursday afternoon.

More than 3.4 million homes and businesses were without power after Hurricane Milton spun across central Florida, according to the website PowerOutage.us.

Energy companies serve more than 11.5 million customer accounts statewide, according to the website. The number of people left without electricity continued to grow as the hurricane cut a path eastward across the state.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.