Florida residents hurried back to flooded neighborhoods on Friday and began to assess the damage to their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
President Joe Biden estimated the total damage to cost close to $50 billion during an update Friday, saying, “I want everyone in the impacted areas to know we’re going to do everything we can to help you pick back up the pieces and get back to where you were.”
On Sunday, Biden will visit the state to view the destruction left behind by the hurricane, his second visit in eight days; on Oct. 3, he traveled to Taylor County to view the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The White House did not provide specific details as to where he will go this time.
At least 14 people have died due to Milton and over 1,200 people had been rescued as of Friday morning. While the hurricane made landfall at Siesta Key on the west coast, many of the deaths reported so far as a direct result of the storm were along Florida’s east coast, where at least six people died from tornadoes, some of which ravaged South Florida neighborhoods.
Indirect deaths have continued in the aftermath of the storm. On Friday, the Tampa Police Department said a 55-year-old woman was killed late Thursday night when two cars collided in a dark area where the traffic signal was inoperative.
Meanwhile, “an indeterminate volume” of tainted stormwater from a toxic waste site at a fertilizer plant has leaked into Tampa Bay, the plant’s operator said. The Mosaic Company, which runs a phosphate facility in Riverview, southeast of Tampa, said the site was overwhelmed after receiving almost 15 inches of rain during Milton.
Rising rivers in the region have caused continued flooding Friday, requiring more rescues as bodies of water overflow.
Crews from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office assisted with rescues of people stranded in rising waters along the Alafia River on Friday. Some were facing as much as 6 feet of flooding, deputies said late Friday morning. In the nearby Lithia community, deputies rescued a 91-year-old woman, carrying her out the front door as waters rose in her home. The water in the street reached their waists.
“When you have 16 inches of rain, that water has to go somewhere,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a video posted Friday.
According to a Tampa Bay Times report, the river had risen 23 feet, 4 feet higher than the designation for major flooding and the highest recorded mark since 1933, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The sheriff estimated on Friday that the river could still rise another foot higher.
“They never expected it to be this much in such a short period of time, and it caught a lot of them off guard,” he said.
In Riverview, named because of its proximity to the Alafia River, a small bridge over a culvert washed out, blocking Canadian Del Ockey from the home where he spends the six coldest months of the year. He has no idea when it might be replaced.
“We’ve had seven or eight of them come before, but nothing like this one,” he said of Milton. “This was big-time.”
In Pasco County on Friday, residents reported receiving warnings on their phones alerting them of “historical flooding in low-lying areas.” The Sheriff’s Office said it was monitoring flooding from Cypress Creek and Anclote River. The county opened an additional shelter Friday.
Meanwhile, about 1,500 people remain in shelters in Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg. More than 170 have been there since Hurricane Helene, the county’s emergency management director, Cathie Perkins, said in a Friday briefing.
In St. Lucie County, cleanup efforts began as family members began to identify those who died in the tornadoes, many of whom lived in the retirement community of Spanish Lakes Country Club Village in Fort Pierce.
One victim was Deborah Kennedy, 66, a retired nursing home custodian. Her daughter, Brandi Smith, said she was known in the small town of Union Springs, N.Y., for her extravagant Halloween decorations. Kennedy’s boyfriend was found seriously injured outside their destroyed home, WPTV reported.
On Facebook, family members identified another two who died as Alejandro Alonso and his girlfriend, Mary Grace Viramontez.
“Please pray for all those affected by this terrible storm and the other families whose loved ones were lost,” Alonso’s daughter-in-law, Ashley Alonso, wrote on Facebook. “Please pray for my husband Alex Alonso, as he works through the loss of his father.”
About 2.2 million customers in Florida remained without power Friday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us, down from 2.4 million that morning. About 1.3 million FPL customers had power restored by Friday afternoon, officials said at a news conference. They estimate that it will take nearly a week for all power will be restored in the hardest hit counties, including Brevard, Charlotte, Sarasota, and Indian River, but that most residents will have power by Thursday. Other hard-hit counties including Okeechobee and St. Lucie should have close to all power restored by next Wednesday.
Duke Energy, which serves much of Pinellas County, had 350,000 customers restored to service as of 9 a.m. but there are still 850,000 outages. The utility estimates that Pasco and Pinellas Counties will have power restored by Tuesday.
Meanwhile, with the worst over, residents who evacuated are returning to assess the damage to their homes. Westbound traffic on Alligator Alley was backed up as evacuees headed back to the Gulf coast on Friday morning, and streams of vehicles headed south Thursday evening and Friday on Interstate 75, the main highway that runs through the middle of the state, as relief workers and evacuated residents returned to assess the aftermath on the west coast.
The state had submitted its disaster declaration request to the federal government as of early Friday afternoon, according to Kevin Guthrie, executive director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Once approved, people will be able to start filing claims for aid from FEMA.
“The president knew it was coming, the administrator knew was coming, all of the staff in DC knew it was coming,” Guthrie said. “So we’re hoping there’s going to be a quick turnaround time on that.”
For Hurricane Helene alone, FEMA approved more than $700 million in aid, according to the agency. More is likely to be allocated to address the needs from Hurricane Milton.
Currently, more than 600 FEMA staff have been deployed in response to Milton, including search-and-rescue teams and disaster response units in Florida. FEMA also prepared more than 5 million meals and 3 million liters of water that are available for Milton survivors.
To apply for FEMA assistance, there are three ways to reach out:
- Calling the FEMA Helpline at 1-800-621-3362.
- Online by visiting disasterassistance.gov.
- Downloading and applying on the FEMA App.
As of Friday morning, State Farm reported receiving about 6,000 total auto and homeowner claims from Milton, but more are likely to come.
“These are initial claim counts and could be expected to increase as more residents return home to discover and report damage from the storm,” the insurance company said.
Gas stations throughout the Tampa area continued to be closed. The few that were open had hourlong lines of residents.
“I know people have concerns about fuel,” DeSantis said at a news conference Friday afternoon. “There’s a lot of interest in these gas stations. There’s fuel available, it’s just the gas stations, if they don’t have a generator then they need that power to get back on the pumps, and I do think the power is going to get on as quickly as humanely possible.”
Tensions were high at some gas stations, leading to disputes. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said it received “numerous calls for service regarding disputes and arguments at gas stations throughout Pasco County.”
Hurricane Milton photos: Scenes of damage and rescue efforts across Florida
In addition to homes, downtown areas of cities like St. Petersburg remained unrecognizable. At a news conference late Friday morning, DeSantis stood in front of the downed crane that had toppled and smashed into a building during the storm’s peak Wednesday.
Asked if there should have been more regulation to prevent the crane collapse, DeSantis rejected the idea, saying a better thought would be to use “common sense” to secure cranes before a storm.
“You have building officials. You have other people that are there,” he said. “And so do you really have to crack down from the state to do it? I would hope not. And I think most of the time in Florida that is handled very appropriately. But I think it just takes a little bit of common sense.”
Staff writers David Lyons and Abigail Hasebroock contributed to this report, which was supplemented by information from the Associated Press, the News Service of Florida, and the New York Times.