By CHRIS O’MEARA, BRENDAN FARRINGTON and TY O’NEIL
LITHIA, Fla. (AP) — Florida residents slogged through flooded streets, gathered up scattered debris and assessed damage to their homes on Friday after Hurricane Milton smashed through coastal communities and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes.
At least nine people were dead, but many expressed relief that Milton wasn’t worse. The hurricane spared densely populated Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized. Gov. Ron DeSantis warned people to not let down their guard, however, citing ongoing safety threats including downed power lines and standing water that could hide dangerous objects.
“We’re now in the period where you have fatalities that are preventable,” DeSantis said Friday. “You have to make the proper decisions and know that there are hazards out there.”
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.
As homeowners assessed damage to their property, about 2.2 million customers in Florida remained without power Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us. The 260,000 people in St. Petersburg were told to boil water before drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth, until at least Monday.
The state’s vital tourism industry started to return to normal, meanwhile, with several theme parks preparing to reopen. The state’s busiest airport was also scheduled to fully reopen Friday.
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Warnings were heeded and lessons learned. When 8 feet (2.4 meters) of seawater flooded Punta Gorda during Hurricane Helene last month, 121 people had to be rescued, Mayor Lynne Matthews said. Milton brought at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) of flooding, but rescuers only had to save three people.
“So people listened to the evacuation order,” Matthews said.
The flooding from Milton’s heavy rains was still causing problems in other areas, however.
Crews from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office were assisting with rescues of people, including a 92-year-old woman, who were stranded in rising waters along the Alafia River on Friday morning. The river is 25 miles (40 kilometers) long and runs from eastern Hillsborough County, east of Tampa, into Tampa Bay.
Animals were being saved, too. Cindy Evers helped rescue a large pig stuck in high water Friday at a strip mall in Lithia east of Tampa. She had already rescued a donkey and several goats after the storm.
“I’m high and dry where I’m at and I have a barn and 9 acres,” said Evers, adding she will soon start to work to find the animals’ owners.
In Riverview, named because of its proximity to the Alafia River, a small bridge over a creek washed out, blocking Canadian Del Ockey from the home where he spends the six coldest months of the year.
Two planks over the now trickling creek are the only way he can get to his house. He rented a car and parked it on the other side, making a run Friday morning to get gas and fix a chain saw that broke as he was cutting down fallen trees around his home.
Ockey said he’s used to hurricanes, having built his house 26 years ago, but Milton was different.
“We’ve had seven or eight of them come before, but nothing like this one. This was big-time,” Ockey said.
Before noon on Friday, cars with residents returning to evacuated homes in southwest Florida crept along in a slow-moving line of traffic across Interstate 75, also known as Alligator Alley. Many had evacuated to the state’s Atlantic Coast near Fort Lauderdale and Miami. On Thursday evening, bucket trucks, fuel tankers, portable bathroom trailers and a convoy of emergency vehicles streamed toward the hardest-hit areas.
Finding gas was still a challenge. Fuel stations were still closed as far away as Ocala, more than a two and a half hour drive north of where the storm made landfall as a Category 3 near Siesta Key in Sarasota County on Wednesday night.
As residents rushed back to their homes to assess the damages, tourists who had come for a vacation found that Florida theme parks including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld had reopened Friday.
Orlando International Airport, the state’s busiest, said departures for domestic flights and international flights would resume Friday, after resuming domestic arrivals Thursday evening. The airport had minor damage, including a few leaks and downed trees. Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers also reopened Friday.
MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and Patrick Space Force Base near Cocoa Beach remain closed, with only authorized personnel allowed on the bases. MacDill, home to U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command, experienced some damage and flooding, Air Force officials said. Patrick was spared any significant damage.
In Clearwater, Jelvin Glenn said it took less than an hour early Thursday for water to rise to his waist inside his apartment. He and seven kids, ranging in age from 3 to 16, were trapped in the brown, foul floodwaters for about three hours before an upstairs neighbor opened their home to them.
Later Thursday, first responders arrived in boats to ferry them away from the building.
“Sitting in that cold nasty water was kind of bad,” Glenn said.
Short-term survival is now turning into long-term worries. A hotel is $160 a night. Everything inside Glenn’s apartment is gone. And it can take time to get assistance.
“I ain’t going to say we’re homeless,” Glenn said. “But we’ve got to start all over again.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has enough money to deal with the immediate needs of people impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton but will need additional funding at some point, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said Friday.
The disaster assistance fund helps pay for the swift response to hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other disasters across the U.S. Congress recently replenished the fund with $20 billion — the same amount as last year.
Farrington reported from St. Petersburg, Florida. Associated Press journalists Terry Spencer outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Lolita Baldor in Washington; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; contributed to this report.
