Topline
Airports and theme parks in the path of Hurricane Milton reopened Friday while almost 2.5 million Florida residents remain without electricity roughly 36 hours after the storm moved across the state and killed more than a dozen people.
Residents are seen walking on a damaged street at Siesta Key on Oct. 10, 2024 after Hurricane … [+]
Key Facts
More than 2.4 million customers in Florida and Georgia and 55,000 homes in North Carolina are still without power Friday morning, according to Poweroutage.us maps, as evacuees returned to their homes to remove debris left by the most recent storm—and destruction remaining from Hurricane Helene, which hit the southeast two weeks ago.
Most power outages are concentrated along Florida’s west-central coast, with half a million customers in the dark in the Tampa region and and almost 200,000 in Fort Myers.
The extent of Hurricane Milton’s damage is still unknown but hundreds of people were rescued by emergency workers as waters rose and at least 16 people died from the storm, though the death toll is still rising.
Many of the deaths were reported far from the Tampa area where Milton made landfall, and some have been attributed not to the hurricane itself, but to the more than a dozen tornadoes created by the storm’s strong winds in the inland part of the state.
Six people were killed by tornadoes in St. Lucie County, on the east coast of Florida, local officials said; four deaths were reported in Volusia County; two in Pinellas County; and one each in Citrus County, Polk County, Hillsborough County (home to Tampa) and Orange County.
After the storm moved offshore Thursday, an employee for Polk County was hit by the car of a fellow cleanup crew member and killed while assessing cleanup and debris removal before sunrise; officials in Hillsborough County said a woman was killed on her 73rd birthday Thursday when she was hit by a falling tree branch while cleaning up debris at an assisted living facility; and an Orange County man died after stepping over a downed power line while cleaning debris.
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A man walks with his son in a street that was flooded by rains from Hurricane Milton.
What To Watch For
It is possible the Milton death toll will continue to rise as cleanup efforts begin in earnest, and Duke Energy of Florida has warned residents to be cautious of downed power lines and other dangers when cleaning up debris.
Key Background
Hurricane Milton was dubbed “extremely dangerous” before it made landfall Thursday and was named so for a number of reasons. The storm moved from west to east—the opposite of most hurricanes, which travel from east to west with the trade winds—making it the only hurricane to directly hit Tampa Bay in almost 100 years. Milton brought with it hurricane-force winds that spawned at least 19 tornadoes across the state and its storm surge caused water levels to rise up to 9 feet in some areas. The roof was ripped off Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays and a large crane collapsed and smashed into the side of a building in downtown St. Petersburg. Milton hit Florida two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the state’s Big Bend region as a massive Category 4 storm. At least 20 people died in Florida before the storm moved northward and killed hundreds more in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.
Tangent
A man known online as “Lieutenant Dan,” thanks to viral videos on TikTok, survived Hurricane Milton,as well as Hurricane Helene, on his boat. The man, whose real name is, Joseph Malinowski, insisted on staying on his small sailboat through both hurricanes. The move skyrocketed him to TikTok fame ahead of Helene and online fans closely awaited news of his safety. He survived the second hurricane despite pleas to seek shelter and told local reporters after Milton hit that the “safest place to be is on a boat in a flood.” Another man who was on his boat when Milton approached had to be rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard Thursday. The agency said it found a man who was out on his fishing vessel hours before the eye of the storm hit Florida floating in the Gulf of Mexico with nothing but a lifejacket and cooler. He was rescued via helicopter about 30 miles off Longboat Key, The New York Times reported.
