Florida residents returned to the familiar ritual of assessing hurricane damage Thursday, the day after Milton smashed through many coastal communities and spawned a barrage of tornadoes that killed at least five people less than two weeks after the misery wrought by Helene.
The storm knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off a baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.
But many people also expressed relief that Milton wasn’t worse. The system spared Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.
The system tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall late Wednesday as a Category 3 storm in Siesta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. Damage was widespread, and water levels may continue to rise for days, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was not “the worst-case scenario.”
The storm also dumped up to 18 inches (45 centimeters) of rain in some areas, the governor said.
Officials in the hard-hit Florida counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.
“We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out,” Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, said on Facebook.
About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. By Thursday afternoon, it was headed into the Atlantic Ocean as a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 75 mph (120 kph) — just barely hurricane force.
About 80,000 people spent the night in shelters and thousands of others fled after authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people.
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