Arriving just two weeks after the misery wrought by Hurricane Helene, the system also knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off a baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.
Among the most dramatic rescues, Hillsborough County officers found a 14-year-old boy floating on a piece of fence and pulled him onto a boat. A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man who was left clinging to an ice chest in the Gulf of Mexico after his fishing boat was stranded in waters roiled by Hurricane Milton. The agency estimated the man had survived winds of 75 to 90 mph and waves up to 25 feet high during his night on the water.
“This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Dana Grady said.
Despite the destruction, many people expressed relief that Milton wasn't worse. The hurricane spared Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.
The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall late Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane in Siesta Key, about 70 miles 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.”
“You face two hurricanes in a couple of weeks — not easy to go through — but I’ve seen a lot of resilience throughout this state,” the governor told a briefing in Sarasota. He said he was "very confident that this area is going to bounce back very, very quickly.”
Five people were killed in tornadoes in the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where homes were destroyed, authorities said. Police also found a woman dead under a fallen tree branch in Tampa.
In Volusia County, authorities said two people, a 79-year-old woman in Ormond Beach and a 54-year-old woman in Port Orange, were also killed when trees fell on homes.
At least 340 people and 49 pets have been rescued in ongoing efforts, DeSantis said Thursday afternoon.
South of Tampa, Natasha Ducre and her husband, Terry, felt lucky to be alive after the hurricane peeled the tin roof off their cinder block home in Palmetto. They spent the night in a shelter with their three children and two grandchildren after she pushed them to leave.
“I said, ‘Baby, we got to go. Because we’re not going to survive this,’” she said.
They returned to find the roof torn into sheets across the street, shredded insulation hanging from exposed ceiling beams and their belongings soaked.
“It ain’t much but it was ours,” she said. “What little bit we did have is gone.”
The worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota County, where it was 8 to 10 feet — lower than in the worst place during Helene. The storm also dumped up to 18 inches of rain in some areas.
Among the dozens of tornadoes was a twister that hit the tiny barrier island of Matlacha, just off Fort Myers. The fishing-and-tourism village also endured a surge, with many of the colorful buildings sustaining serious damage. Tom Reynolds, 90, spent the morning sweeping out 4 feet of mud and water and collecting chunks of aluminum siding torn off by a twister that also picked up a car and threw it across the road.
Elsewhere on the island, a house was blown into a street, temporarily blocking it. Some structures caught fire. Reynolds said he planned to repair the home he built three decades ago.
“What else am I going to do?” he said.
In contrast, city workers on Anna Maria Island were grateful not to be wading through floodwaters as they picked up debris Thursday morning, two weeks after Helene battered buildings and blew in piles of sand up to 6 feet high. Those piles may have helped shield homes from further damage, said Jeremi Roberts of the State Emergency Response Team.
“I’m shocked it’s not more,” city worker Kati Sands said as she cleared the streets of siding and broken lights. “We lost so much with Helene, there wasn’t much left.”
By Thursday afternoon, Milton was headed into the Atlantic Ocean as a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 75 mph — just barely hurricane force.
Crossing the bridge from the mainland to Anna Maria Island early Thursday, Police Chief John Cosby breathed a sigh of relief. Nearly all residents had evacuated. There were no injuries or deaths, and the projected storm surge never happened. After fearing that his police department would be underwater, it remained dry.
“It's nice to have a place to come back to,” he said.
