When Hurricane Milton barreled through St. Petersburg, Florida, Wednesday night, it took canvas roof off of the Tropicana Field stadium with it.
The stadium is the home ballpark for the Tampa Bay Rays. The roof was destroyed as the Category 3 hurricane made landfall, Mediaite reported.
“OMG. We all had a collected gasp when we saw this from our reporter. The fabric on the roof of Tropicana Field is shredded,” WFTS meteorologist Jason Adams wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, along with a video of the canvas blowing roof in the wind.
The stadium was being used by first responders as a staging area for hurricane recovery at the time the storm blew through.
No injuries were reported.
ABC News stated the stadium roof was “made from ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), a polymer that’s stronger than glass but significantly lighter.”
ABC News also reported that the metal frame of the roof “appeared to be unscathed.”
The Rays organization said the Trop was built to withstand winds of up to 115 mph, per ABC News.
The roof is supported by 180 miles of cables connected by struts in what the team calls the “world’s largest cable-supported domed roof.”
The stadium opened in 1990 at a pricetag $138 million.
