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Millions of Floridians yesterday began a long and difficult recovery 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 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 southeast US.
During a 72-hour period this week, the Florida Department of Transportation 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 said yesterday at a briefing. A cubic yard is about twice the size of a washing machine.
“I don’t think there’s ever been that much debris removed in such a short period of time,” he said.
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 dropped to about 2.27 million by yesterday noon, according to the website PowerOutage.us, from a high of more than 3.4m in Milton’s immediate aftermath. Some customers have been waiting for 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, and are involved with search and rescue, ground and air reconnaissance, humanitarian assistance, route clearance and other efforts, said Major General John Haas, the governor’s senior military adviser. In St Petersburg, hundreds of trees were downed, and more than 100 traffic signals were not working as of late Thursday, Mayor Kenneth Welch said at a news briefing.
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 Sarasota County, a bridge to the hard-hit barrier islands reopened yesterday to allow residents to return to their properties.
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