Residents assess the damage from a fire Friday at the Beachaven Villas in Sarasota, Florida, near where Hurricane Milton came ashore. Photo / The Washington Post
Florida staggered back to its feet on Friday, turning on lights, resuming flights, and reopening the Disney World theme park and commercial ports as a massive recovery from Hurricane Milton lurched into high gear.
Tens of thousands of emergency workers – including the largest National Guard deployment in the state’s history – fanned out across Florida to haul away debris, fix power lines and provide food two days after the storm pummeled the state.
Despite the effort, more than 2 million customers remained without power, 13,000 people were housed in shelters, and some were still threatened by floodwaters that had yet to recede. President Joe Biden announced that he would travel to Florida on Sunday to survey the damage, which he said early estimates put at around $50 billion (NZ$81.8 billion).
Governor Ron DeSantis reiterated that Milton’s toll was not a worst-case scenario and said Florida was sending back emergency personnel who had deployed from other parts of the country for search-and-rescue missions. But the state was still beleaguered after a one-two punch from major hurricanes in successive weeks, he said. The death toll from Milton stood at 15 as of Friday evening.
“This has been now going on for weeks where we’ve been on this emergency footing,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “I know people have been working around the clock. Just when you started to get a little bit of normalcy after Helene – when things maybe started to stabilise – you turned around and had to deal with this other menacing storm.”
Drone footage from Anna Maria Island and interviews on Siesta Key, both near Sarasota, brought the enormity of the disaster into sharper focus. The footage showed a bright yellow beach house hanging precariously after its support pilings collapsed, toppled trees and a beachfront building lying on its side as if tossed aside by a child.
Biden said the ultimate cost of Milton could be about $50b, adding that the figure could fluctuate as more information is collected. He also said storm victims should know that “we’re going to do everything we can to … help you pick back up the pieces, and get back to where you were”.
The President lamented misinformation circulating online about the hurricane and first responders, calling it “disgusting” and “dangerous”.
Rescue aircraft and boats were still working hard-hit areas in the state Friday, but DeSantis described the situation as “stabilised”.
The governor said 1600 people and 140 animals had been rescued since Milton blew ashore Wednesday night as a Category 3 storm that spawned nearly 50 reports of tornadoes, dropped 19 inches of rain on St Petersburg and pushed a major storm surge up some beaches.
But normal life was slowly beginning to resume.
In Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall, a group of old fisherman cottages are some of the few original structures still standing. But the bright blue, yellow and pink single-level houses took a beating they’ve scarcely experienced in the more than 80 years they’ve hosted guests steps from the sugary white-sand beaches of the island. “It will never be the same,” said Marie-Louise Leuenberger, 74, as she tried to clear debris from the property, which she has owned for four decades.
The longtime island resident and entrepreneur can’t calculate yet how much Hurricanes Helene and Milton are going to set her family business back.
Leuenberger has been in cleaning mode for two weeks. She stayed on the second level of her beachside home as Hurricane Helene inundated the first floor with a “tsunami of seawater,” she said.
Her son, Steve, flew in from Switzerland a day after landfall to help his mother recover. They had just gotten the walls dry when Milton started to threaten their coast again. This time, they went to another property they own to ride it out.
The Category 3 storm brought less storm surge than anticipated but more wind to wallop anything left standing. At the cottages, the white picket fence was leaning out of the ground. The hammocks were tangled around trees. And every leaf of the prized mango tree was stripped off, leaving behind the naked bark of what was once a lush fruit-producing favourite of guests.
The chaos and damage were expected, but that won’t make cleanup easier.
“She’s just wiped out,” Steve Leuenberger, 40, said as his mother pulled branches and debris from the sidewalk in front of their cottages. “We have to rethink everything,” he said, looking around at his mother and the waterlogged patio.
Across the island, mounds of debris littered curbs alongside pools of brown, stagnant water. Shorn palms and exposed siding and roofs bore witness to the power of a storm that could have been much worse. Mattresses, kitchen sinks, window screens and more made up the assortment of ruined possessions now awaiting removal.
DeSantis said repurposed road crews had hauled away about 40,000 cubic yards of debris and about 12,000 miles of state roads had been reopened. Nearly 20 school districts resumed classes on Friday, and seven more were slated to open Monday. The state has given out about 1.2 million meals and 23,000 blankets and set up about 202,000 tarps.
Orlando International Airport, Tampa International and Southwest Florida International in Fort Myers resumed flights, while Sarasota Bradenton International Airport announced that it would remain shuttered through Wednesday.
The Coast Guard said commercial ports returned to life in Key West, Miami, Port Everglades and the Miami River, as well as in Georgia and South Carolina. One utility company forecast that all power should be restored to its customers by Tuesday.
Melissa Seixas, state president of Duke Energy in Florida, said at a news conference that about 850,000 customers were without power as of 11am on Friday and the power generator had restored service to about 350,000. Duke has 16,000 workers in the state.
“Today we started full-bore … into restoration,” Seixas said. “This will not be weeks of restorations for our customers. This will be days.”
Seixas and state officials warned residents to stay away from downed power lines after one appeared to claim the life of a man in Orange County who was found dead in his front yard on Thursday.
One major issue that remained after Milton was a shortage of gas across Florida. Nearly 30% of gas stations had run dry statewide, including almost 80% of those in the Tampa and St. Petersburg area, according to GasBuddy. Long lines snaked outside stations that still had fuel.
Kevin Guthrie, the executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said state officials were trying to alleviate the problem by delivering state-owned fuel to stations and outfitting others with generators, so their pumps could dispense gas.
“We have a million-plus gallons available,” Guthrie said of state fuel reserves.
Guthrie also said state officials were working with federal officials to get out-of-state hauliers to come to Florida to help remove debris and had applied for emergency federal relief to help with housing.
In the wake of the storm, some rivers were still cresting, including the Alafia River, outside Tampa, which was expected to peak at a near record of around 25 feet above flood stage Friday evening or Saturday morning. Local sheriff’s deputies posted a video of a 91-year-old woman being rescued from her home nearby Friday.
A study from the World Weather Attribution network released lon Friday concluded that climate change had made Milton more fierce. It found that the hurricane’s winds were 10% faster than they would have been in a world not altered by greenhouse gas emissions. The historic downpour that dumped as much as five inches of rain in a single hour was 20% to 30% heavier because of atmospheric warming, according to the study.
A few moments of joy punctuated the gloom. Pinellas County Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said on Friday that a baby had been born at one shelter and staff had assisted with the delivery.
“Just beautiful to see that new life, you know, in the middle of all of this destruction,” Perkins said.
The Coast Guard also made an improbable rescue on Thursday, after spotting a fishing captain clinging to a cooler 30 miles off the coast of Longboat Key. The man, who was not identified, became stranded after going to repair his vessel in the hours before Milton made landfall.
He battled waves of up to 7.6m and 144 km/h winds as Milton roared overhead.
“This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” Lieutenant Commander Dana Grady, the Coast Guard’s command centre chief in St Petersburg, said in a news release.
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