Residents clean up and figure out what’s next after Milton
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Florida residents continued to repair damage from Hurricane Milton and figured out what to do next Friday after the storm tore through coastal communities, tearing apart homes, flooding streets and creating a barrage of deadly tornadoes.
At least eight people were killed, but many expressed relief Milton wasn’t worse. The hurricane spared densely populated Tampa a direct hit, and the deadly storm surge that scientists feared never came true.
The system arrived just two weeks after the devastating Hurricane Helene, knocking out power to more than 3 million customers, flooding barrier islands, destroying the roof of Tampa Bay Rays ‘ baseball stadium and a construction crane fell over.
A flood of vehicles moved south Thursday evening on Interstate 75, the main highway that runs through the center of the state, as emergency responders and evacuated residents headed to the aftermath. At times, some cars even drove on the left shoulder of the road. Box trucks and fuel tankers streamed past, along with portable bathroom trailers and a convoy of emergency vehicles.
As residents rushed back to find out if their homes had been destroyed or spared, finding gas was still a challenge. Fuel stations were still closed as far away as Ocala, a more than two-and-a-half-hour drive north of where the storm made landfall Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm near Siesta Key in Sarasota County.
As clean-up efforts continued, the state’s vital tourism sector began returning to normal.
Florida theme parks including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld planned to reopen Friday after an assessment of the storm’s impact.
Orlando International Airport, the state’s busiest, said it would resume domestic and international departures Friday after resuming domestic arrivals Thursday evening. The airport had minor damage, including some leaks and fallen trees.
Milton prevented Simon Forster, his wife and their two children from returning to Scotland as planned on Wednesday evening, so they enjoyed two extra days of their two-week holiday on Thursday on a busy International Drive in Orlando’s tourist district. Hurricanes seem to be following them ever since 2022’s Hurricane Ian stopped them from returning to Scotland after another holiday in Orlando.
“Two extra days here, there are worse places we could be,” he said.
Natasha Shannon and her husband, Terry, were lucky to be alive. Hurricane Milton peeled the tin roof of their concrete block home in their neighborhood a few blocks north of the Manatee River, about a 45-minute drive south of Tampa. She pushed him to leave as the storm barreled toward them Wednesday night, after he resisted the evacuation of their three-bedroom home where he grew up and where the couple lived with their three children and two grandchildren. She believes the decision saved their lives.
When they returned, they found the roof of their house spread in sheets across the street, while the wooden beams of what was their ceiling were exposed to the sky. Inside, the fiberglass insulation hung down in tatters, their belongings soaked by rain and littered with pieces of shattered drywall.
‘It’s not much, but it was ours. What little we had left is gone,” she said. “It’s gone.”
With no more places available and the cost of a hotel room out of reach, they plan to cram into Terry Shannon’s mother’s house for the time being. After that they’re not sure.
“I don’t have any answers,” Natasha Shannon said. “What’s my next step? What am I going to do?”
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Payne and Daley reported from Palmetto, Florida. Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer and Kathy McCormack in New Hampshire; Terry Spencer in Matlacha, Fla.; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Fla.; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.