Hurricane Milton plowed into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday after cutting a destructive path across Florida that spawned tornados, killed at least 10 people and left millions without power, but the storm did not trigger the catastrophic surge of seawater that was feared.
Governor Ron DeSantis said the state had avoided the "worst-case scenario," though he cautioned the damage was still significant and flooding remained a concern.
The Tampa Bay area appeared to sidestep the storm surge that had prompted the most dire warnings, though the barrier islands along the shore south of the city endured extensive flooding.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a White House briefing that there were reports of 10 deaths thus far, adding it appeared they were caused by tornados. At least 27 twisters touched down in Florida, he said.
In St. Lucie County on Florida's east coast, a spate of tornados killed five people, including at least two in the senior-living Spanish Lakes communities, county spokesperson Erick Gill said.
On Thursday, snapped concrete electric poles and overturned trucks in ditches offered evidence of the twisters' power.
Crystal Coleman, 37, and her 17-year-old daughter hid in the bathroom during the storm as a tornado began peeling the roof off her Lakewood Park house.
"It felt like I was in a movie," she said. "I felt like I was about to die."
More than 3.2 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. At least some had already been waiting days for power to be restored after Hurricane Helene hit the area two weeks ago. Milton shredded the fabric roof of Tropicana Field, the stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg, but there were no reported injuries. The ballpark was a staging area for responders, with thousands of cots set up on the field.
In downtown St. Petersburg, dozens of onlookers came out in the bright sunshine to look at a fallen crane that sliced off a corner of the Johnson Pope building on First Avenue South, home also to the Tampa Bay Times. The crumpled boom stretched from one end of the street to the other.
"That, to me, is shocking and crazy to see," said Alberta Momenthy, 27, who lives nearby. "It looks like it kind of keeled over, and the building caught it and got a little destroyed."
Steven Cole Smith, 71, an automotive writer and editor who lives in Tampa about seven miles (11 km) from the Gulf Coast, rode out the storm with his wife. He said the wind shook the windows so hard he thought they would shatter.
"We really didn't have anywhere else to go," Smith said of their decision not to follow evacuation orders. He has a house in central Florida, but said the forecast for that area looked as bad as where he was staying.
"I spent yesterday scavenging for supplies, fuel for the generator, everything we'd need," he said. "I have a chainsaw too."
Luckily, he said, Tampa was spared a direct hit.
Ken Wood, 58, a state ferryboat operator in Pinellas County, fled his Dunedin home on Florida's Gulf Coast with his 16-year-old cat Andy, after making the "harrowing" mistake of riding out Hurricane Helene two weeks ago in his mobile home.
They heeded evacuation orders and headed north but only made it as far as a hotel about an hour's drive away when he decided the roads were no longer safe.
"It was pretty loud, but Andy slept through it all," he told Reuters by telephone.
He is worried about his home but was awaiting official word that roads are clear before returning. Helene destroyed about a third of his neighborhood, and the streets were still piled with rubble that could have become wind-driven projectiles.
'INSTANTANEOUS'
The state was still in danger of river flooding after up to 18 inches (457 mm) of rain fell. Authorities were waiting for rivers to crest, but so far levels were at or below those after Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said on Thursday morning.
Most of the severe damage reported so far stemmed from the tornados, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency head Deanne Criswell, who was in Tallahassee on Thursday.
"The evacuation orders saved lives," she said, noting that more than 90,000 residents went to shelters.
In Fort Myers on the southwest coast, resident Connor Ferin surveyed the wreckage of his home, which had lost its roof and was full of debris and rainwater after a tornado hit.
"All this happened instantaneous, like these windows blew out," he said. "I grabbed the two dogs and ran under my bed and that was it. Probably one minute total."
President Joe Biden, who postponed an overseas trip to monitor Milton, said on Thursday he believes the U.S. Congress should come back into session to address disaster relief funding needs following the storm.
He said he had not spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson on the subject of Congress returning. Members of the House of Representatives and Senate are not scheduled to return to Washington until after the Nov. 5 election.
The storm hit Florida's west coast on Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with top sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph). While still dangerous, Milton had weakened from a catastrophic Category 5 status as it trekked over the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.
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