Florida residents hurried back to flooded neighborhoods on Friday and began to assess the damage to their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
At least 13 people had died and over 1,200 people had been rescued as of Friday morning. While the hurricane made landfall at Siesta Key on the west coast, many of the deaths reported as a direct result of the storm so far were along Florida’s east coast, where at least six people died from tornadoes, some of which ravaged South Florida neighborhoods.
Indirect deaths have continued in the aftermath of the storm. On Friday, the Tampa Police Department said a 55-year-old woman was killed late Thursday night when two cars collided in a dark area where the traffic signal was inoperative.
About 2.4 million customers in Florida remained without power Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us. About 1,654,575 accounts had been restored, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office.
Duke Energy, which serves much of Pinellas County, had 350,000 customers restored to service as of 9 a.m. but there are still 850,000 outages. A company rep said the utility would publicize a schedule for restoration Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, with the worst over, residents who evacuated are returning to assess the damage to their homes. Streams of vehicles headed south Thursday evening on Interstate 75, the main highway that runs through the middle of the state, as relief workers and evacuated residents returned to assess the aftermath on the west coast.
As of Friday morning, State Farm reported receiving about 6,000 total auto and homeowner claims from Milton, but more are likely to come.
“These are initial claim counts and could be expected to increase as more residents return home to discover and report damage from the storm,” the insurance company said.
Gas stations throughout the Tampa area largely remained without fuel. The few that were open had hourlong lines of residents.
Some areas continued to require rescues as bodies of water continued to overflow.
Crews from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office assisted with rescues of people 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.
In Riverview, named because of its proximity to the Alafia River, a small bridge over a culvert washed out, blocking Canadian Del Ockey from the home where he spends the six coldest months of the year. He has no idea when it might be replaced.
“We’ve had seven or eight of them come before, but nothing like this one,” he said of Milton. “This was big-time.”
Hurricane Milton photos: Scenes of damage and rescue efforts across Florida
In addition to homes, downtown areas of cities like St. Petersburg remained unrecognizable. At 11 a.m., Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference in front of the downed crane that had toppled and smashed into a building during the storm’s peak Wednesday.
Asked if there should have been more regulation to prevent the crane collapse, DeSantis rejected the idea, saying a better thought would be to use “common sense” to secure cranes before a storm.
“You have building officials. You have other people that are there,” he said. “And so do you really have to crack down from the state to do it? I would hope not. And I think most of the time in Florida that is handled very appropriately. But I think it just takes a little bit of common sense.”
Information from the Associated Press and the New York Times was used in this report.
This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.
Originally Published: