2.5m organizations, housSIESTA KEY: The loss of life from Typhoon Milton rose to 16 on Friday, as occupants started the difficult course of piecing their lives and homes back together.
Power was out to nearly 2.5 million homes and businesses, and some areas along the storm’s path from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean remained flooded.
As a category 3 storm late on Wednesday, Milton tore through communities still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which killed 237 people in the southeast United States, including in Florida.
Milton left a desolate landscape on Siesta Key, a beautiful barrier island near Sarasota where the storm made landfall.
On Friday, some streets were still submerged. On the sides of the roads, fallen trees and other debris, including couches, beds, chairs, and appliances, a lot of which Helene had left behind.
Even though his house was largely spared, the island “got hit really hard,” according to resident Mark Horner, who moved there six years ago and now lives there.
However, the 67-year-old expressed optimism: Our heaven will return. It just takes some getting used to.
Twisters, not floodwaters, were behind a large number of the tempest’s demises.
Milton caused a tornado that killed four people in Fort Pierce, Florida, on the Atlantic coast.
According to Susan Stepp, a resident who is 70 years old, “they did find some people just outside dead, in a tree.” They should have left, I wish.
Although the storm brought down telephone lines, shattered the roof of the Tampa baseball stadium, and overflowed homes, Florida escaped the devastating destruction that officials had feared.
Governor Ron DeSantis stated to reporters, “The storm was significant, but thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario.”
The weather conditions administration gave a record 126 cyclone admonitions across the state on Wednesday.
Lidier Rodriguez, whose Tampa Bay apartment was flooded, stated, “It is not easy to think you have everything and suddenly you have nothing.”
The spectacular rescue of a boat captain who rode out the storm clinging to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico was reported by the coast guard. Florida residents without power
