FORT PIERCE, Florida, Oct 12 — Millions of Floridians began a long and difficult recovery on Friday after the state's second major hurricane in two weeks, restoring power, shovelling mud from flooded homes and clearing mountains of debris left by Milton and Helene.
While some coastal cities such as Tampa were spared the catastrophic surge of seawater that many forecasters had feared, Milton brought widespread flooding and touched off a spate of deadly tornadoes on Florida's east coast, killing at least 16 people and leaving millions without power.
Many areas had still been clearing debris and repairing damage from Hurricane Helene, which slammed into the Gulf Coast late last month before battering much of the US Southeast.
During a 72-hour period this week, the Florida Transportation Department removed 2,200 truckloads of debris — more than 40,000 cubic yards — from Pinellas County barrier islands near the mouth of Tampa Bay, Governor Ron DeSantis told a briefing. A cubic yard is about twice the size of a washing machine.
Utility workers repaired downed power lines and damaged cellphone towers, while crews from government agencies and residents armed with chainsaws cleared downed trees and mopped up flooded neighbourhoods in cities and towns swamped by heavy rains.
The number of Florida homes and businesses without electricity had dropped to about 2.27 million by late Friday morning, according to website PowerOutage.us, from a high of more than 3.4 million in Milton's immediate aftermath. Some customers had already been waiting days for power to be restored after Helene hit the area.
More than 6,500 National Guard members have been activated in 23 Florida counties, officials said.
President Joe Biden will visit Florida on tomorrow to survey the damage, the White House said.
In St. Pete Beach, a barrier-island city, clearing debris from the twin storms will take weeks, Mayor Adrian Petrila told ABC News.
"It's going to be a very long time for us," he said, adding that most of the city's houses were uninhabitable with no sewer or water service.
In Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, workers have visited more than 450 homes and businesses to assess damage since Thursday, said C.K. Moore, an emergency-management official.
Unlike Helene, whose storm surge caused most of its damage along the coast, Milton's strong winds and extreme rainfall created problems across the county, Moore said. Plant City, more than 32km inland, experienced major flooding.
"We're just hoping for a period of calm so we can clean this stuff up and give residents a sense of normalcy," said Moore, adding that the county has opened additional landfills to accommodate storm debris.
The city of Tampa does not yet know the costs of the storm cleanup, according to communications director Adam Smith. The work will likely require months of clearing downed trees and vegetation on top of removing household debris left from Helene, which is the city's first priority, he said.
The city, however, avoided a calamitous storm surge after Milton's path shifted east hours before landfall, taking the hurricane south of Tampa Bay itself.
The fifth-most-intense Atlantic hurricane on record, Milton could cost insurers between US$30 billion and US$60 billion, Morningstar DBRS analyst Marcos Alvarez said on Friday. That projection was lower than the up to US$100 billion estimated by the firm before the storm's arrival.
Milton's rapid intensification from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 monster in less than 24 hours was the latest example of a worrying trend that has seen storms growing more powerful, more quickly, due to climate change. Milton made landfall as a major Category 3 hurricane.
The Biden administration said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would need additional funding from the US Congress and called on lawmakers, who are on recess, to return to Washington.
There were at least 16 hurricane-related deaths, CBS News cited the Florida Law Enforcement Department as saying.
— Reuters
