Milton leaves at least 16 dead, millions without power in Florida

The death toll from Hurricane Milton has risen to at least 16, officials in Florida said Friday, and millions were still without power as residents began the painful process of piecing their lives back together.

More than two million households and businesses were still without power, officials said, and some areas in the monster storm’s path through the state remained flooded.

“There’s places where water is continuing to rise,” Governor Ron DeSantis warned on Friday. But while the storm was “significant,” he said, “thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario.”

In a White House briefing, US President Joe Biden said experts estimated the cost of storm damage at $50 billion.

The federal response to the huge storm — and to Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of the US southeast just two weeks earlier — has taken on an increasingly political edge, and Biden said he would visit Florida on Sunday.

Amid questions as to whether the federal response is adequately funded, the president called on Congress to “step up” its efforts, particularly to shore up hard-hit small businesses. The agency that lends to them and families said Friday it is overwhelmed by this disaster and others and is running out of money.

Former president Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the Biden-Harris administration has diverted hurricane response funds to care for migrants, drawing pushback even from some Republican officials.

Asked whether Trump was singularly to blame for a dangerous swirl of misinformation, Biden replied, “No… but he has the biggest mouth.”

– Hope amid desolation –

On Siesta Key, a beautiful barrier island near Sarasota where the storm made landfall, Milton left a desolate landscape.

Some streets were still flooded on Friday. Fallen trees and debris — sofas, beds, chairs and appliances, much of it left behind by Helene — were strewn haphazardly on roadsides.

“It’s just terrible,” John Maloney, 61, who owns a home remodeling company, said as he removed tree limbs from a seaside house he was working on. “But I think we’ll rebuild again.”

Tornadoes, not floodwaters, were behind many of the storm’s deaths.

At least six people were killed in St. Lucie County, four in Volusia County, two in Pinellas County, and one each in Hillsborough, Polk, Orange and Citrus counties, officials said.

The storm downed power lines, shredded the roof of the Tampa baseball stadium and inundated homes.

In Sarasota, around 100 vehicles lined up to get fuel at one of the few service stations still selling it. Other people waited patiently in line on foot with jerry cans.

“We got word that they got fuel here, so here we are and so is everybody else today,” said resident Dave Stone.

– Record tornado warnings –

The Small Business Administration, a government agency which lends money to people and businesses struck by disasters, said it is now supporting people hit by 36 such catastrophes and is running out of money, its administrator Isabel Casillas told CNN.

“It is a matter of days,” Casillas said.

The National Weather Service issued a record 126 tornado warnings across the state Wednesday, said hurricane expert Michael Lowry.

Search operations were ongoing Friday — DeSantis said 1,600 people had been brought to safety — and the Coast Guard reported the spectacular rescue of a boat captain who rode out the storm, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the shore, clinging to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts said Friday that human-induced climate change made Hurricane Milton wetter and windier.

What would have been a Category 2 storm, the World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists said in a report, instead grew into a more destructive Category 3, on a five-point scale.