Florida residents on Friday slogged through flooded streets, gathered up scattered debris and assessed damage to their homes after Hurricane Milton smashed through coastal communities and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes.
At least 10 people were dead, and rescuers were still saving people from swollen rivers, but many expressed relief that Milton was not worse. The hurricane spared densely populated Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.
As of Friday night, the number of customers in Florida still without power had dropped to 1.9 million, poweroutage.us data showed. St Petersburg’s 260,000 residents were told to boil water before drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth, until at least tomorrow.
Photo: AFP
Also on Friday, the owner of a major phosphate mine disclosed that pollution spilled into Tampa Bay during the hurricane, likely exceeding a 66,245-liter minimum reporting standard, although it did not provide a figure for what the total volume might have been.
Arriving just two weeks after the devastating Hurricane Helene, Milton flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays ‘ baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.
Residents who fled hundreds of miles to escape the storm made slow trips home on crowded highways, weary from their long journeys and the cleanup work awaiting them, but also grateful to be coming back alive.
Photo: AFP
“I love my house, but I’m not dying in it,” Fred Neuman said, while walking his dog outside a rest stop off Interstate 75 north of Tampa.
Neuman and his wife live in Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall on Wednesday night as a powerful, Category 3 hurricane. Heeding local evacuation orders ahead of the storm, they drove nearly 800km to Destin on the Florida Panhandle.
Nearby, Lee and Pamela Essenburm on Palmetto made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at a picnic table as vehicles pulling off the slow-moving interstate waited for parking spaces outside the crowded rest stop.
“I wasn’t going to take a chance on it,” Lee Essenbaum said. “It’s not worth it.”
Officials say the toll could have been worse if not for the widespread evacuations. The still-fresh devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene just two weeks earlier probably helped compel many people to flee.
“Helene likely provided a stark reminder of how vulnerable certain areas are to storms, particularly coastal regions,” said Craig Fugate, former US Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator under former US president Barack Obama. “When people see firsthand what can happen, especially in neighboring areas, it can drive behavior change in future storms.”
Crews from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office on Friday were assisting with rescues, including of a 92-year-old woman, who were stranded in rising waters along the Alafia River.
In the Gulf Coast city of Venice, Milton left behind several meters of sand in some beachfront condos, with one unit nearly filled. A swimming pool was packed full of sand, with only its handrails poking out.
Milton also spawned dozens of tornadoes that hit South Florida far from where the storm made landfall near Sarasota. One of them killed at least six people in Spanish Lakes Country Club Village near Fort Pierce.
In Wellington, Tony Brazzale on Wednesday afternoon stood outside his house and watched as a tornado loomed in the sky before seeking cover inside. The twister shattered windows in the home, tore off roof shingles, ripped a tree from the ground and left branches and other debris scattered in the yard.
“The hurricane was a nonevent for us,” he said. “Had it not been for an F3 tornado, the entire thing would have been a nonevent for us.”
Meteorologists said there might have been at least 38 tornadoes associated with Milton. The National Weather Service is still reviewing preliminary reports, which could take weeks, but it issued 126 tornado warnings in the state the day the hurricane hit.
When the review is complete, the storm could crack the all-time top-10 list for most tornadoes caused by a hurricane.
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