() – There was not much more than piles of rubble from destroyed homes when Vickie Ward returned to her neighborhood in Grove City, Florida, after Hurricane Milton on Friday.
“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 was never picked up,” Ward said of the damage in his coastal town located about an hour northwest of Fort Myers.
Ward is one of thousands of Floridians who are returning to their homes to assess the impact of the destructive force of Milton, which made landfall earlier this week as a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, claiming at least 17 lives and destroying homes, roads and power lines.
In St. Petersburg, storm chaser Brandon Clement says he encountered several residents standing in front of where their homes “used to be” because they are now nothing more than a pile of rubble.
“It is not a pleasant sight. It’s truly a heartbreaking moment to see,” Clement said, adding that Milton was a “catastrophic hurricane that impacted many people over a very large area.”
Angie Dooley, 20, and her father are seeking shelter Friday after their ground-floor apartment in Daytona Beach flooded.
“The water was up to… if you’re sitting on the couch, it would be like up to your knees on the couch,” Dooley said. Most of her furniture, clothes and keepsakes, including her baby photos, are destroyed, she said.
Dooley and his 55-year-old father, Scott, fled the apartment early Thursday morning as the floodwaters began to rise. Since then, they have slept in their car and in a hotel room, but do not have a room reserved for this Friday night.
“I just have to take it day by day,” Scott Dooley said.
After Rina Tabak’s Tampa home was destroyed and she had to evacuate by boat during Hurricane Helene, she thought her family might be safe at her mother-in-law’s home in nearby northwest Hillsborough County.
However, that home, which Tabak said was not under an evacuation order, was severely damaged during Milton. Parts of the house’s roof collapsed or landed in the backyard, he added.
His family cannot live in any of the houses and are staying in a hotel. However, they know it will be months before either house is safe for them to return.
“I just want a place that is safe and where we can settle down. The dogs can settle down. Our daughter can settle down and go back to work. Have a sense of normalcy,” Tabak said.
“I’m fed up. “I’m tired of this year,” Tabak said of hurricanes.
They are thinking about leaving Florida
Near Sarasota, Cheryl Bernatowicz prepared her home for possible flooding, but she never imagined the storm’s strong winds would tear off her roof.
“It really ripped the concrete out of the ground, like the posts on the garages, they were completely ripped out with the concrete in the ground, and the whole roof was just completely ripped off,” Bernatowicz told ‘s Jake Tapper on Thursday.
His home in North Port, Florida, has been damaged multiple times by storms and he had just finished paying for repairs from Hurricane Ian in 2022. Now, Bernatowicz says he doesn’t know if he wants to continue living in Florida.
“To be honest with you, I don’t want to… It’s my fourth hurricane and I’ve been demolished four times. So after that, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it really does,” he said.
While some residents try to assess the damage, others were rescued by rescuers from flooded homes this Friday or are evacuating due to the imminent threat of overflowing rivers.
East of Tampa, in Valrico, Florida, Ralph Genito and his wife quickly packed as many clothes as they could into trash bags this Friday. Sheriff’s deputies took them back to their home on a hovercraft after their neighborhood was flooded by Hurricane Milton’s storm surge and the overflowing Alafia River.
The river has risen about 4.5 meters since Wednesday night and crossed major flood stage on Thursday, previously reported.
“This area is not supposed to get like this, it’s not supposed to. We are the last road that supposedly floods,” Genito said.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister urged residents living near rivers and streams to evacuate Friday as river flooding was expected to worsen. “The water is not going down. “The water is only going to increase,” he told .
Genito said the water started rising Thursday. In a matter of hours, he said, it reached 0.9 meters high and flooded his daughter’s small house, which is next to his home. At that point, the family rushed out, worried that they might be trapped. The inside of their house was still mostly intact Friday morning, but Genito said they couldn’t stay. The septic tank and generator were underwater, he explained.
“I feel for everyone who has gone through the same thing. I really do,” Ralph said through tears. “I never expected it to happen to me, no one expects it to happen to them, so you just get over it.”
‘s Isabel Rosales and Mounira Elsamra contributed to this report.
Add Comment