Hurricane Milton is moving away from Florida, leaving a trail of destruction and debris in its wake, and now comes the damage assessment.
Fortunately, it was “not the worst-case scenario,” according to Gov. Ron DeSantis, though photos and video captured early Thursday as the sun came up show widespread damage to many parts of the state due to high winds, tornadoes, flooding and driving rain.
Hundreds of thousands of Floridians were forced to flee their homes and head for higher or safer ground this week as forecasters predicted mass devastation and a powerful storm surge, particularly in coastal areas.
Officials had issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.
But some Floridians decided to stay, citing a range of reasons from newborn babies and precious livestock, to fuel shortages and gridlocked roads.
As the storm was preparing to make landfall in the Sunshine State, Global News took a look at five people who were undergoing preparations to ride out the hurricane. Here’s an update on how they’re faring after the storm.
The mom with a baby
On Wednesday, one woman with a six-month-old infant documented her family’s storm preparations on TikTok, explaining that they would hunker down at home instead of taking their baby to an evacuation centre.
“I would be more comfortable in my own home,” she told the camera, sharing that they did consider leaving but were deterred when visits to multiple sold-out gas stations proved there was no gas to put in their car.
On Thursday, she posted a follow-up video surveying the damage around her home, which was fairly minimal — a few stray palm tree leaves and a crooked fence.
“We’re all safe, everyone’s alive, we have power,” she said, appearing relieved.
The Sarasota realtor
Leland Howard, a realtor and property manager who lives in Sarasota — one of the cities directly in the path of Milton — said Wednesday that he would be weathering the storm at home to ensure he could quickly deal with any issues tied to his business.
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And while he was confident his home was safe and strong enough to withstand the worst of the hurricane, he did urge others to either evacuate or seek shelter at local makeshift rescue centres.
On Thursday, after posting updates throughout the night, he returned to TikTok to say he and his family were doing “just fine.”
He said there was a little bit of damage to his own property, including a downed palm tree and some debris, and that the reports coming in about the properties tied to his business along Florida’s west coast were “very positive.”
He did note, however, that some homes were damaged in the wind and that a lot of people living in his properties had yet to return home after evacuating flood-prone areas, so he was bracing for more reports of damage.
The hobby farmers
The owner of Our Simple Homestead, a hobby farm in the “direct path” of Milton, shared emotional videos earlier this week about her decision to stay at the farm and do what they could to protect their numerous livestock and pets.
She explained that she couldn’t transport all of the animals to safer ground and that some were missing the health certificates required to leave the state, so they were doing their best to keep them protected from the hurricane.
During the dawn hours on Thursday, after a long night inside with many of the farm’s animals, she shared that while they lost power and cell service, they were doing “OK.”
As she headed outside, she took inventory of the animals, noting that the cows and their calves had survived. Dozens of chickens, ducks and roosters could be seen wandering in a field and it appeared the chicken coop, while temporarily blocked off, was not crushed under the property’s many fallen trees.
She became emotional in her update, breaking into sobs of relief that their rescue donkeys were up and eating and that all the animals had been spared the storm’s wrath.
The influencer
Caroline Calloway, a Florida-based influencer notorious for her online antics, went viral earlier this week after she shared to Instagram that she wouldn’t be leaving her Sarasota home, despite living on the water and being in a mandatory evacuation zone.
Her reasons for not leaving included not being able to drive, the airport was closed and that a previous evacuation during Hurricane Ian was “traumatic.”
“I’m going to die,” she said in a now-expired story shared on Instagram, before posting a photo overlooking the water with the caption: “A little concerned I live right on the beach not going to lie.”
Well, Calloway did survive, using the attention brought to her account by numerous news articles to promote her books.
On Thursday morning, she shared a succinct tweet to mark her safe status: “I lived bitch,” she wrote, alongside a selfie with her cat.
The Corvette owner
As for the Florida man who wrapped his brand new Corvette in a roll of plastic sheeting, his status is still TBD.
On Wednesday he shared two videos of the efforts to protect his beloved vehicle from water damage, explaining that he lived on the east coast of Florida and was more concerned with rain water flooding as opposed to his car “floating away” in a storm surge.
As of Thursday morning there has been no updates to his TikTok channel, despite promising a part three video.
The aftermath of Milton
While it appears almost all of the people we followed were spared the worst of Hurricane Milton, others were not so fortunate.
More than 3 million Floridians are without power as of Thursday and at least five people are dead.
The storm also whipped up at least 150 tornadoes around the state, and the destruction from these additional storms-within-a-storm are still being assessed.
“We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got more to do, but we will absolutely get through this.”
Officials in the hard-hit Florida counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.
They also warned that the danger has not passed: Storm surge warnings were posted for much of the east-central Florida coast and north into Georgia. Tropical storm warnings were in place along the coast into South Carolina.
State officials said they completed more than 40 rescues overnight and crews would be going door to door in some areas Thursday. In Tampa, police said they rescued 15 people from a single-storey home damaged by a fallen tree.
“We are laser-focused on search-and-rescue operations today,” said Col. Mark Thieme, executive director of the Florida State Guard.
— With files from Global News’ Saba Aziz and The Associated Press
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