Hurricane Milton destroys millions and spawns tornadoes throughout Florida. At least 5 dead

Hundreds of Florida residents were rescued Oct. 10 from the aftermath of Hurricane Milton after the storm tore through coastal communities where it ripped apart homes, filled streets with mud and spawned a shower of tornadoes which killed at least five people.

Coming just two weeks after the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, the system also knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, ripped the roof off a baseball stadium and drop a construction crane.

But many people also expressed relief that Milton was no worse. The hurricane spared Tampa a direct hit, and the deadly storm scientists feared never materialized.

The storm tracked south in the final hours and made landfall late on October 9 as a Category 3 hurricane on Siesta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. Damage was widespread and water levels may continue to rise for days, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was not “the worst case scenario.”

“You’re dealing with two hurricanes in a couple of weeks, it’s not easy to go through, but I’ve seen a lot of resilience throughout this state,” the governor said at a briefing in Sarasota. He said he was “very confident that this area will recover very, very quickly.”

In south Tampa, Natasha Shannon and her husband, Terry, felt lucky to be alive after the hurricane ripped the tin roof off their cinder block home in Palmetto. They spent the night in a shelter with their three children and two grandchildren after she pushed them to leave.

“I said, Baby, we’ve got to go. Because we’re not going to survive this,” she said.

They returned to find the roof torn in sheets across the street, shredded insulation hanging from exposed ceiling beams, and their belongings soaked.

“It’s not much, but it was ours,” he said. “What little we had is gone.” The worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota County, where it was 2.5 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet), lower than the worst place during Helene. The storm also dumped up to 18 inches (45 centimeters) of rain in some areas.

At least 340 people and 49 pets have been rescued in ongoing search and rescue operations, DeSantis said Thursday afternoon.

After flying over some of the hardest-hit areas, the governor said many of the houses that were built in recent years withstood the storm: “Our buildings that were built in the last 20 or 30 years did very well good”. Officials in hard-hit Florida’s Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee counties urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees on roads, blocked bridges and flooding.

Inland Tampa, flooding in Plant City was “absolutely staggering,” according to City Manager Bill McDaniel, who estimated the city received 13.5 inches (34 cm) of rain.

“We have flooding in places and levels that I’ve never seen, and I’ve lived in this community my whole life,” he said in a video posted online Thursday morning.

The small barrier island of Matlacha, just off Fort Myers, was hit by both a tornado and a wave, with many of the colorful buildings of the fishing and tourist town severely damaged.

Tom Reynolds, 90, spent the morning sweeping away four feet of mud and water and picking up pieces of aluminum siding torn up by a bend that also caught a car and threw it onto the road.

Elsewhere on the island, a house was blown into a street, temporarily blocking it. Some structures caught fire. Reynolds said he planned to repair the house he built three decades ago.

“What else will I do?” he said

Instead, city workers on Anna Maria Island were thankful they weren’t wading through flood waters as they picked up debris Thursday morning, two weeks after Helene battered buildings and blew piles of fine sand to 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. Those batteries may have helped protect homes from further damage, said Jeremi Roberts of the state emergency response team.

“I’m surprised it’s not more,” said city worker Kati Sands as she cleared the streets of broken walls and lights. “We lost so much with Helene that there wasn’t much left.” The storm slammed into a region still reeling from Helene, which flooded streets and homes in west Florida and left at least 230 people dead in the south. In many places along the coast, municipalities scrambled to collect and remove debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could throw it around and add to any damage.

Power was out across much of the state, with more than 3.4 million homes and businesses without power, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.

The fabric that serves as the roof of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg, was torn to pieces by strong winds. Debris littered the field, but there were no injuries.

Jessie Schaper, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Florida, said it was too early to know exactly how many tornadoes touched down or how strong they were.

All five tornado deaths happened at the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce on Florida’s Atlantic coast, where homes were destroyed, officials said.

At a White House briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there were reports of up to 10 tornado deaths, but cautioned that the number was tentative.

Milton headed into the Atlantic Ocean as a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h), barely hurricane strength.

Officials had issued dire warnings to flee or face dire odds of survival.

Jackie Curnick said she struggled with her decision to stay home in Sarasota, just north of where the storm made landfall. She and her husband began packing Monday to evacuate, but struggled to find available hotel rooms, and the few that came were too expensive.

With a 2-year-old son and a girl on Oct. 29, Curnick said there were too many unanswered questions if they got in the car and left: Where would they sleep? Could they fill up their gas tank? And could they even find a safe route out of the state? Video captured during the storm showed howling winds and sheets of rain battering her glass-enclosed pool as her son and dog looked on. The trees were shaking violently.

Thursday morning, he reported that the family was without power but safe.

About 80,000 people spent the night in shelters and thousands more fled after authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders in 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people.

Crossing the bridge from the mainland to Anna Maria Island early Thursday, Police Chief John Cosby breathed a sigh of relief. Almost all residents had been evacuated. There were no injuries or deaths, and the projected storm surge never happened. After fearing his police department was underwater, he stayed dry.

“It’s nice to have a place to come back to,” he said.