Hurricane Milton tears roof off domed home of MLB's Tampa Bay Rays and litters field

The roof panels over the home of baseball's Tampa Bay Rays were ripped to shreds by the force of Hurricane Milton, with debris littering the field and much of the seating areas Thursday after the deadly storm barrelled across the state.

Team officials said only a handful of "essential personnel" were inside Tropicana Field, located in St. Petersburg, Fla., when the storm hit. Aerial images 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.

No injuries at the stadium were reported. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had said earlier in the week 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 simply would not survive Milton's wrath.

"They were relocated," DeSantis said at a Thursday morning news conference. "Tropicana Field is a routine staging area for these things. The roof on that ... I think it's rated for 110 miles per hour 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."

Now that the sun is up, here’s a 360-degree view of the damage Hurricane Milton caused to Tropicana Field’s roof and the inside of the ballpark. Absolutely heartbreaking