Authorities are urgently assessing the cost of Hurricane Milton after the deadly storm spawned tornadoes ahead of slamming into central Florida and then tearing across the state, leaving destroyed homes, streets blocked with downed power lines, fallen trees and debris.
At least 16 people have been killed by the storm, according to the Tampa Bay Times and recovery efforts continue, meaning the numbers could rise. The hurricane made landfall less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit north-west Florida and stayed over land as a tropical storm, with an unexpectedly high death toll of 230 people, the highest since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, and brought damage from flooding and high winds to 10 states.
Milton’s powerful and destructive weather system, which produced dozens of tornadoes in Florida on Wednesday, wrecked an estimated 150 homes, knocked out power to more than 3.3 million customers, swept over barrier islands with 6ft of storm surge, ripped the roof off a baseball stadium and toppled a 500ft construction crane.
A 14-year-old boy was found floating on a piece of fence and a coast guard helicopter crew rescued a man floating on an ice chest separated from his boat in the Gulf of Mexico – “a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner”, according to rescuers.
But Milton, which wobbled 70 miles south from where it was anticipated to make landfall, did not deliver the scale of destruction that authorities feared. Mass evacuations undoubtedly lowered the death toll after Milton whipped up into a category 5 hurricane as it swiped Mexico, slowed a little, accelerated again as it crossed the gulf and finally hit Florida as a category 3. Tampa was spared a direct hit, and a feared 15ft storm surge never materialized.
The worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota county, where it reached 8-10ft – lower than in the worst place during Helene. But the 18in of rain that fell in some areas is still causing flooding. Causeway bridges and airports have re-opened and people are returning to see what is left of their homes. Some are sound, some destroyed, some filled with sand from the huge sea surge.
The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said it was not “the worst-case scenario”. He said he was “very confident that this area is going to bounce back very, very quickly”.
Milton’s fatalities included five people killed by tornadoes in the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic coast, and a woman killed by a fallen tree branch in Tampa. Two more women were killed by fallen trees in Volusia county.
But Milton’s cost is also being calculated in political terms, setting off a fierce round of accusations between political candidates in next month’s national elections.
The vice-president, Kamala Harris, and the White House criticized the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, for his attacks on the federal response to hurricanes Helene and Milton and suggested he was trying to turn the deadly storms to his political advantage.
“In this crisis – like in so many issues that affect the people of our country – I think it so important that leadership recognises the dignity,” Harris, the Democratic party nominee for president after Biden dropped his re-election bid in July, said at a town hall in Las Vegas on Thursday night. “I have to stress that this is not a time for people to play politics,” she added.
The vice-president’s comments came after Trump suggested the Biden administration’s response had been lacking and planned in partisan ways that caused Republican voters be abandoned and left “Americans to drown”, particularly in North Carolina after Helene. “They’ve let those people suffer unjustly,” he said. His comments have received bipartisan criticism, including from some local and state Republican leaders in affected areas.
Biden called the Republican election campaign “so damn un-American with the way they’re talking about this stuff” and added directly to Trump: “Get a life, man”.
Meteorologists tracking Milton have been beset by conspiracy theories that they are controlling the weather, even by using a nuclear explosion, and have faced death threats.
“I’ve never seen a storm garner so much misinformation, we have just been putting out fires of wrong information everywhere,” said the CBS meteorologist Katie Nickolaou. She added: “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes. I can’t believe I just had to type that.”
