Hurricane Milton live: Florida attempts to recover as 1.6m still without power

Residents of Florida pay the highest homeowners insurance premiums in the U.S., and Hurricane Milton could make things even worse.

The storm has prompted more than 12,000 claims with the state’s insurer of last restort, Citizens Property Insurance Corp., and caused more than $586m in damage to insured properties.

Hurricane Milton may have been the most recent threat, but Americans are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which tore through the southeast throughout late September and earlier this month.

Rescue efforts are still underway, as this video from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division shows, with soldiers assisting FEMA in hard-hit North Carolina.

In cities around Florida’s Tampa Bay region, even residents in areas not considered flood risks zones saw their homes inundated with water, sewage, and debris.

That’s because federal “flood-risk zone” maps don’t quite capture the complex realities on the ground anymore, where continued development has eroded the protections provided by Florida’s natural wetlands, and extreme weather grows more common from climate change.

As the Tampa Bay Times notes in a recent piece, areas in St. Petersburg, Lutz, New Tampa, and across Pasco County experienced major flooding days after Miton moved on, even in areas not historically considered flood zones.

“Everyone in Florida is at risk from hurricane flooding,” Trevor Burgess, CEO of Florida insurer Neptune Flood, told the paper. “It just comes down to whether or not you’re required by law to buy insurance.”

Residents of Florida have been left reeling by Hurricane Milton, a Category 3 storm which has led to at least 14 deaths, 3.4 million power outages and significant damage which is yet to be determined.

Hundreds of people were rescued Thursday in the aftermath of the storm, which brought historic rainfall in Tampa, flung debris and trees around streets, and left the Tampa Bay Rays’ St Petersburg field in shambles.

Amid evacuation alerts for millions, experts had warned that this could be one of the deadliest and most destructive storms in recent years, just as residents started to pick up the pieces from last month’s Hurricane Helene.

With the toll of its destruction still in limbo, how does Milton compare to the most fatal hurricanes in the 21st century?

Alicja Hagopian and Julia Musto report.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis pitched in on Saturday with the Hurricane Milton relief efforts, handing out supply packs to families at the Pioner Park Point of Distruction in Hardee County.

Retailer Walmart also joined the action, supplying household necessities to Florida residents.

Tony Brazzale, a diving boat captain who has lived for 10 years in his Wellington home in southeastern Florida, wasn’t worried about Hurricane Milton. The storm’s center was forecast to make landfall on the opposite side of the peninsula and then cross the state well to the north of his family.

But on Wednesday afternoon as the hurricane began to pummel the state, he stood outside his house and watched as a tornado loomed in the sky. He took video on his phone. The pressure dropped, and his wife said her ears were popping. It was time to go inside.

The twister shattered windows in the home, tore off roof shingles, ripped a tree from the ground and left branches and other debris scattered in the yard. Two days later Brazzale was wearing safety goggles and using a chainsaw as he cleaned up the damage.

“The hurricane was a nonevent for us,” he said. “Had it not been for an F-3 tornado, the entire thing would have been a nonevent for us.”

It was one of dozens of tornadoes spawned by Milton that hit South Florida far from where the storm made landfall near Sarasota. One of them killed at least six people in Spanish Lakes Country Club Village near Fort Pierce, about an hour’s drive north from Wellington.

Meteorologists believe there may have been at least 38 tornadoes associated with Milton. The National Weather Service is still reviewing preliminary reports, which could take weeks, but it issued 126 tornado warnings in the state the day the hurricane hit.

When the review is complete, the storm could crack the all-time top-10 list for most tornadoes caused by a hurricane.

The highest number of confirmed tornadoes from a hurricane were the 118 unleashed by Ivan in 2004, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hurricane Beryl, which hit in July of this year and is still under review, generated at least 65 confirmed tornadoes and currently ranks fifth.

By comparison, Florida overall typically sees about 50 tornadoes a year on average, according to Matthew Elliot, a warning coordination meteorologist for the Storm Prediction Center.

In Wellington, 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Tampa near West Palm Beach on the Atlantic Coast, sheriff’s deputies spent Friday morning and afternoon helping residents clean up debris and move large trees that were obstructing roads.

Brazzale toiled to fix roof tiles and replace his shattered windows. Throughout his neighborhood, Pine Trace at Binks Forest, others were doing the same thing — cleaning up debris, putting tarps on damaged roofs and chain sawing fallen trees and branches.

The most important thing is that nobody died here, Brazzale said.

“It’s a significant pressure drop when one of those things goes over,” he said of the tornado. “You heard it. It was a freight train.”

A Florida couple has revealed that Hurricane Milton unearthed a long-lost wedding ring which had been missing for almost a decade.

Laura and Basil Yorio told Fox35 that the ring vanished without a trace nine years ago while they were going through a construction project on their home in Palm Bay, Florida.

It had not been seen since.

On Wednesday, Hurricane Milton tore through their neighborhood.

When they returned home, Laura said she spotted something shiny in their yard.

“I looked down and saw a silver ring and thought it was like a key ring,” she said.

They then realized what it was.

“We’re very mindful that a lot of people are going through terrible things, and I feel almost a little guilty feeling happy about all of this, but it was something good.”