Milton shreds roof of Tropicana Field, home of baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays

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.See live updates here

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 stadium, which was opened in 1990, is usually busy with playoff baseball games in most recent Octobers, but not this year. The Rays finished 80-82 this past season, in their first campaign under .500 since 2017. Tampa Bay missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018.