Vickie Ward returned to her Grove City, Florida, neighborhood on Friday to find little more than a pile of debris from destroyed homes.
“We have stuff in our yard, I don’t even know where it belongs because it’s people’s debris from the last one (Hurricane Helene) that just never got picked up,” Ward said, describing the destruction in her coastal community, roughly an hour northwest of Fort Myers.
Ward is one of thousands of Sunshine State residents who are returning to their homes to examine the damage caused by Milton’s destructive fury. The hurricane made landfall earlier this week as a devastating Category 3 storm, killing at least 17 people and wrecking houses, roads, and power lines.
Storm chaser Brandon Clement says he encountered numerous neighbors in St. Petersburg who are standing in front of their “used to be” homes, which are now nothing more than a pile of wreckage.
“It’s not a beautiful sight. It’s a horrible moment to witness,” said Clement, adding that Milton was a “catastrophic hurricane that devastated a lot of people across a very big area.”
They don’t have anywhere to go
Angie Dooley, 20, and her father are looking for shelter after their ground-floor apartment in Daytona Beach flooded on Friday.
“The water was up to like… so if you’re sitting on the couch, it would be like right up to your knees up on the couch,” Dooley told me. The majority of their furniture, clothes, and keepsakes, including her newborn photographs, have been destroyed, she claims.
Dooley and her 55-year-old father, Scott, evacuated their flat early Thursday morning as floodwaters rose. Since then, they’ve slept in their car and a hotel room, but they don’t have a reservation for Friday night.
“I’m just having to take it day by day,” Scott Dooley said.
Rina Tabak’s Tampa home was devastated, forcing her to flee by boat during Hurricane Helene, and she hoped her family would be safe at her mother-in-law’s home in nearby northwestern Hillsborough County.
However, that residence, which Tabak said was not under an evacuation order, was severely destroyed during Milton. Parts of the house’s roof crumbled or landed in the backyard, she stated.
Her family cannot dwell in any of the properties and is currently sleeping in a motel. However, they are aware that neither home will be safe for them to return for some months.
“All I want is a safe spot where I can just relax in. The dogs can settle down. Our daughter can settle in and return to work. “Have a sense of normalcy,” Tabak stated.
“I’m finished.” “I’m done for the year,” Tabak said of the hurricanes.
They are considering leaving Florida
Cheryl Bernatowicz of Sarasota had prepared her home for flooding, but she had no idea the storm’s high winds would pull off the roof.
“It ripped the concrete right out of the ground – like the posts for the carports, they got ripped with the concrete out of the ground – and the whole roof just got completely torn off,” Bernatowicz informed CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.
Her property in North Port, Florida, had been destroyed by storms several times, and she had just finished paying for Hurricane Ian repairs in 2022. Bernatowicz now says she’s not sure she wants to live in Florida anymore.
“Honestly, I don’t want to… This is my fourth hurricane, and I’ve been demolished four times. So after that, it leaves a horrible taste in your mouth,” she explained.
Some just began evacuating due to floodwaters.
While some neighbors try to assess the damage, others were rescued by first responders from flooded homes on Friday or are fleeing due to the possibility of cresting rivers.
Ralph Genito and his wife hastily packed as many of their clothes as they could into garbage bags on Friday in Valrico, Florida, east of Tampa. After their area was flooded by Hurricane Milton’s storm surge and the Alafia River overbank flow, sheriff’s deputies transported them back home via airboat.
According to CNN, the river has risen by around 15 feet since Wednesday night and crossed the main flood stage on Thursday.
“This place is not intended to be like this. “We’re the last road that floods,” Genito added.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister warned residents living near rivers and streams to evacuate on Friday, as river flooding was likely to worsen. “The water is not going down; the water is only going to increase,” according to him.
Genito said that the water began rising on Thursday. He claimed that in a matter of hours, it had risen to three feet and swamped his daughter’s modest cottage next door. The family raced out, concerned that they would be trapped. The interior of his home remained almost undamaged Friday morning, but Genito said they couldn’t stay. The septic tank and generator were submerged, he stated.
“I sympathize with everyone who has gone through the same situation. “I do,” Ralph said through tears. “I never expected for it to happen to me, nobody expects it to happen to them — so, you just get through it.”
Article Source: Florida residents are returning to flooded streets and homes gone after Milton
