A woman has given birth to a “miracle baby” during Hurricane Milton after making a perilous journey to hospital while in labour.
Kenzie Lewellen, who was 39 weeks pregnant, witnessed the devastation from her hospital window, with a tree being ripped out of the ground as the massive storm pounded Florida earlier this week.
She also needed a caesarean section as the baby boy was in the wrong position. “I was very scared,” the first-time mother said.
Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm at about 8.30pm local time on Wednesday (1.30am UK time on Thursday), causing massive flooding and leaving millions of people without power.
At least 16 people have been confirmed dead in Florida in the hurricane’s aftermath, including at least five due to tornadoes in St Lucie County.
Ms Lewellen’s labour began at home in Port Charlotte at 4am on Wednesday, Sky’s US partner network NBC News reports.
At that time, the storm had not yet hit the state but Ms Lewellen and her boyfriend Dewey Bennett’s house already started taking in water before her contractions began.
“My mind was just running a million miles an hour, like, what am I going to do?” the 22-year-old woman said. “I was very nervous.”
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Florida before and after Hurricane Milton
Then, after she had been in labour for more than four hours at home, the couple started making their way to Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Venice.
“My mom was driving us, and it was extremely windy, so we were trying to be as cautious as possible,” Ms Lewellen said.
“There was not really many people on the roads, because it was so windy outside and it was raining quite a bit.”
Image: Dewey Bennett with his son Dewey Lester Bennett IV. Pic: Kenzie Lewellen
The couple were even more on edge during the medical emergency as Mr Bennett’s father, also named Dewey, had died when Hurricane Irma slammed into Florida in 2017.
“My dad had a massive heart attack because the ambulance could not come out to us during the storm,” the 24-year-old said.
“I just didn’t want to go through what I had to go through with the last hurricane back in 2017,” added Mr Bennett.
Watching a tree uproot during labour
When the trio arrived at hospital, only one person could be with her. So, Ms Lewellen had to say goodbye to her mother.
“I was very, very upset that my mom couldn’t stay, because she is my best friend and one of my biggest supporters,” she said. But “we were able to FaceTime pretty much the entire time”.
Image: Kenzie Lewellen and Dewey Bennett. Pic: Kenzie Lewellen
She then went through labour in a room with a window view of the destruction as the storm struck the area.
“I was telling him [Mr Bennett], I’m like, ‘Oh, that tree looks like it’s going to fly out of the ground!’ when I was labouring, because we were just watching the storm and the wind and the rain go crazy. It was definitely intense out there,” she said.
“And it actually did uproot,” added, Mr Bennett, the baby’s father.
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Florida escapes worst of hurricane
Unplanned C-section
After being in labour for hours, Ms Lewellen was given some distressing news. The baby was in the wrong position, and she would need an unplanned C-section.
“I had so much going through my head at that point, a storm and my family,” she said.
Problems with the epidural left her in extreme pain for hours until she was given anaesthesia.
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“I was just on my own, by myself, and I was very scared. If I didn’t have the doctors and the nurses that I had, it would have been a whole lot worse,” she said.
Dewey Lester Bennett IV was safely delivered at 11.45pm, weighing 8lbs.
“He is a miracle baby,” Ms Lewellen said.
In a statement, the chief executive of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System David Verinder said: “We couldn’t be prouder of our team. They left their homes and many left their families to be here for our patients and community.”
Along with Dewey, six other babies were born at the two Sarasota Memorial hospitals during Milton, Mr Verinder said.
At least 36 people have been killed as tornadoes and high winds ripped through parts of the US.
The huge storm, which also produced dust storms and icy conditions, destroyed homes, wiped out schools and toppled lorries across the central and southern areas of the country.
National Weather Service meteorologist Cody Snell said tornado watches remain in place for parts of the Carolinas, east Georgia and northern Florida.
At least 36 people have been killed in seven states, including Missouri, where scattered twisters killed a dozen people, according to authorities.
Dakota Henderson, who lives in the state, said he and others found five bodies in the debris outside what was left of his aunt’s house on Friday night as they tried to rescue trapped neighbours.
“It was a very rough deal,” he said on Saturday. “It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night.”
Image: Destruction from a severe storm in Missouri. Pic: AP
Image: Residents search the wreckage in Alabama. Pic: AP
Tornadoes continued on Saturday night as the Storm Prediction Center warned a region stretching from eastern Louisiana and Mississippi through Alabama, western Georgia and Florida was most at risk.
Bailey Dillon, 24, and her fiance, Caleb Barnes, watched from their front porch in Tylertown, Mississippi, as a massive twister struck an area about half a mile away near an RV park, before they drove over to help.
They filmed snapped trees, levelled buildings and overturned vehicles as Ms Dillon described the damage as “catastrophic”.
“Everything was destroyed,” she said.
“Homes and everything were destroyed all around it,” she said. “Schools and buildings are just completely gone.”
The dynamic storm, which was given a rare “high risk” designation from weather forecasters, has been blamed for deadly dust storms, icy weather and severe thunderstorms on Sunday.
State of emergency
Mississippi governor Tate Reeves said six people died and more were missing as storms moved further east into Alabama, where three people including an 82-year-old woman were reported dead.
In Arkansas, where three deaths have been confirmed, governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency.
Image: Lorries have been overturned. Pic: AP
Image: Damage caused by wildfires in Oklahoma. Pic: KOCO/AP
An emergency was also declared in Georgia, where a National Weather Service tornado watch posted early on Sunday warnings of isolated tornadoes, hail and gusts of up to 70mph.
Dust storms and wildfires
Dust storms caused by high winds were blamed for 11 deaths on Friday as eight people died in a pileup involving around 50 vehicles in Kansas, while three people were killed in car crashes in Texas.
The extreme weather conditions were forecast to impact an area home to more than 100 million people, with winds threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and fanning the risk of wildfires in drier, warmer areas to the south.
At least 26 people are reported to have died in powerful storms across the United States.
The number of fatalities increased after eight people died in a highway pile-up caused by a dust storm in Sherman County, Kansas on Friday. At least 50 vehicles were involved.
Car crashes during a dust storm also killed three people in Amarillo, Texas.
Authorities in Missouri say 12 people died after tornadoes struck the state, with another three deaths reported in Arkansas.
Image: Destroyed houses in Florissant, Missouri. Pic: Reuters
Image: A store selling car parts is torn apart in Cave City, Arkansas. Pic: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/AP
Image: The scene of one of the fatal crashes in Austin, Texas on Friday. Pic: AP
Around 108 million people remain under widespread wind, flash flooding and wildfire alerts in central and southern US states. Hundreds of thousands of households are also without power.
Tornado warnings are in place in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Indiana, and Kentucky as a massive storm system moves across the country.
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Many areas across southern states are, or will soon be, dealing with widespread flash flooding, the National Weather Service warned. It added that the flooding could turn deadly.
In Butler County, Missouri, on the border with Arkansas, local coroner Jim Akers said the man and his wife were sleeping when the tornado struck.
Image: Tim Scott is hugged by a friend outside what is left of his home in Wayne County, Missouri. Pic: AP
Image: Another home destroyed – this one in Florissant, Missouri. Pic: Reuters
Rescuers were able to pull the woman from the debris – but could not save the man whose mobile home was ripped apart.
“It was unrecognisable as a home. Just a debris field,” he said, describing the scene. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.”
Large vehicles were also pictured overturned across the state.
Image: A truck topples over after a severe storm near Ozark County, Missouri. Pic: Missouri State Highway Patrol/AP
Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned the recovery could take months after surveying damage from an EF3 tornado in Cave City, in the north of the state.
A storm ranked as EF3, on a scale of one to five, requires wind speeds of between 136-165mph (218-265kph).
Hail the size of baseballs
“It’s hard to look at this level of devastation and not be heartbroken,” she said. “It’s a whole other world when you see it up close and personal.”
Winds gusting up to 80mph (130kph) were predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.
Hail was also a hazard, some the size of baseballs were reported in Christian County, the US weather service said.
Fatal pile-ups during dust storms
In the Texas city of Amarillo, three people were killed in car crashes caused by a dust storm on Friday, according to the state’s public safety department.
One of the deaths happened after three lorries collided with four other vehicles in Palmer County, Bovina’s fire chief Cesar Marquez said. Another occurred after a pile-up of an estimated 38 cars.
Image: The crash scene in Austin, Texas. Pic: AP
Image: Footage from police dashcam shows the intensity of the dust storm in Kansas. Pic: Kansas Highway Patrol (Hays)
Image: West of Amarillo in Texas, a driver captures footage of another dust storm
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” public safety department sergeant Cindy Barkley said, calling the near-zero visibility a nightmare. “We couldn’t tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled.”
Evacuations were ordered in some Oklahoma communities as more than 130 fires were reported across the state. Nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed, said governor Kevin Stitt.
Three deaths happened due to storm damage in Independence County, Arkansas on Friday night, with a further 29 people injured across eight different counties, authorities said.
More than 260,000 households are without power in midwestern and southern states, according to the monitoring website PowerOutage.us.
The Storm Prediction Center at the National Weather Service issued an update on Sunday, warning of a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms.
The warning covers an area from the extreme southeastern part of Mississippi, across much of Alabama, into western Georgia and the western Florida panhandle.
US President Donald Trump has launched strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he also warned Iran the country’s support for the group must “end immediately”.
The Iran-backed Houthis reported a series of explosions in Yemen‘s capital Sanaa on Saturday evening.
The Houthi-run health ministry said in a post on X that at least nine civilians have been killed and nine others injured.
Images shared online show plumes of black smoke over the area of the city’s airport complex, which includes a sprawling military facility.
Image: Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by US airstrikes. Pic: AP
Mr Trump said the strikes were over the group’s attacks against ships in the Red Sea.
“Your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before,” he said.
The president said Iran would be held “fully accountable” for the actions of its proxy, adding: “And we won’t be nice about it!”
The strikes come days after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli vessels sailing in waters off Yemen in response to Israel’s blockade on Gaza, although there have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.
Earlier this month, Israel halted all aid coming into Gaza and warned of “additional consequences” for Hamas if their fragile ceasefire is not extended as negotiations continue over starting a second phase.
“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Mr Trump wrote.
“These relentless assaults have cost the US and World Economy many BILLIONS of Dollars while, at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk.”
The Houthis launched more than 100 attacks targeting shipping from November 2023, saying they were in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
The US, Israel and Britain have previously hit Houthi-held areas in Yemen.
According to a US official, the operation – the first strike on the Houthis under the second Trump administration – was conducted solely by the US.
The Houthi media office said the strikes hit “a residential neighbourhood” in Sanaa’s northern district of Shouab.
Sanaa residents said at least four airstrikes hit the Eastern Geraf neighbourhood in the district, terrifying women and children in the area.
“The explosions were very strong,” said Abdallah al Alffi. “It was like an earthquake.”
Similar missile strikes against the Houthis were done multiple times by Joe Biden’s administration in response to frequent attacks by the Houthis against commercial and military vessels in the region.