Rescues are still underway in Florida as the sunshine state is reeling from Hurricane Milton, including one of a man clinging onto a cooler.
Eight people are dead after the storm, which arrived just two weeks after Hurricane Helene, knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off a baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.
A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man who was left clinging to an ice chest in the Gulf of Mexico after his fishing boat was stranded in waters roiled by Hurricane Milton.
Among the most dramatic rescues, Hillsborough County officers found a 14-year-old boy floating on a piece of fence and pulled him onto a boat.
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Coast Guard rescues man floating on cooler
Hurricane Milton is no longer a hurricane
Disney World, Universal Studios and Tampa Airport announce when they will reopen
Death toll rises to 10
President Biden issues message to those impacted by Milton
Florida Governor gives update – ‘not the worst case scenario’
Tropicana Field destroyed after roof ripped off
Milton’s projected path
Patients rushed to hospital after tornadoes trap them in homes
Hurricane Milton is making its way out of Florida
3,000,000 people left without power in Florida
Woman made 54-hour round trip to rescue grandmother from Hurricane Milton
A woman drove a 54-hour round trip to rescue her 93-year-old grandma from Hurricane Milton.
Jennifer Seaman, 40, and her mom, Sue Schaffnit, 66, were worried about the devastating impact of Hurricane Milton and decided to drive from Peoria, Illinois, to Venice, Florida.
The duo set off on October 6 at 10pm and made the 1,210 mile journey through Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia before arriving in Venice, Florida at 7pm local time on October 7.
Jennifer packed up her 93-year-old grandma’s, bags with her mom and set off 30 minutes later.
The drive back to Illinois took 34 hours and they arrived home on October 9, at 5am.
Jennifer said she is unsure how long their grandma will be staying with them has her care home has lost power and the area has flooded.
She said: ‘I went to my mom’s house and we spent about five minutes deciding what we were going to do and went.
‘We didn’t pack bags or have a change of clothes.’
Death toll increases from tornadoes
Five people were killed in tornadoes in the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where homes were destroyed, authorities said.
Police also found a woman dead under a fallen tree branch in Tampa.
In Volusia County, authorities said two people, a 79-year-old woman in Ormond Beach and a 54-year-old woman in Port Orange, were also killed when trees fell on homes.
Speaking at a White House briefing, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there were reports of as many as 10 fatalities from tornadoes, but he cautioned that the number was tentative.
Coast Guard rescues man floating on cooler
A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man who was left clinging to an ice chest in the Gulf of Mexico after his fishing boat was stranded in waters roiled by Hurricane Milton.
The agency estimated the man had survived winds of 75 to 90mph and waves up to 25 feet high during his night on the water.
‘This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,’ Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Dana Grady said.
Despite the destruction, many people expressed relief that Milton was not worse. The hurricane spared Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialised.
Hurricane Milton is no longer a hurricane
Hurricane Milton has blown into the Atlantic, leaving a trail of death and destruction across Florida.
While residents grapple with the scale of the damage, Milton has been downgraded to a ‘hurricane-force extratropical low’ rather than a hurricane.
Families left homeless by hurricane destruction
Roofs, walls, homes – they’re gone. Palmetto, a city of 13,000 people between Tampa and Sarasota, is just one of the places hit.
Across Florida, people are finding their homes stripped of shelter due to the wind and waters of Hurricane Milton.
There’s nothing now to keep out rain until repairs are complete.
Given the scale of the damage, people may be waiting weeks until they can return home.
‘No time’ to take down crane that crashed through the roof of a building
It’ll take a whole new crane and several days to remove a crane that’s crashed through the roof and walls of the Tampa Bay Times building.
Repairs will take even longer.
Authorities in St Petersburg say they didn’t have time to take down the crane before Hurricane Milton arrived.
‘Some of the water was as high as the second-floor balcony’
Boats are a strange sight on residential streets.
It’s not just sea-faring vessels washed ashore though.
The roads are full of small boats ferrying survivors to safety after they found themselves stranded in homes now submerged by water.
Roughly 430 people were rescued from an apartment building in Pinellas County, home to Clearwater and St Petersburg on the west bank of Tampa Bay.
‘Some of the water was as high as the second-floor balcony’, said County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.
‘I was sure – and I’m glad I was wrong – that we were going to see some casualties out of that.’
Homes washed from their foundations in Hurricane Milton
Entire homes were washed away or dislodged from their foundations in the storm surge brought by Hurricane Milton.
Yachts have been left ashore after flooding receded, while trees have been bent where they stand by the force of the water.
Biden tells Trump to ‘get a life’ over Hurricane Milton misinformation
President Joe Biden hit out at his election rival Donald Trump, accusing him of ‘reckless, irresponsible and relentless disinformation and outright lies’.
Trump claimed federal funds had been diverted from disaster relief to people who entered the country illegally.
A maximum of $750 – or £575 – is available for urgent requirements like food, nappies and baby formula.
But ‘it’s a lie to suggest that’s all they’re going to get’, Biden claimed, saying: ‘It’s just bizarre. They got to stop this.
‘They’re being so damn un-American with the way they’re talking about this stuff.’
He added: ‘Mr President Trump, former president Trump, get a life, man. Help these people.’
Disney World, Universal Studios and Tampa Airport announce when they will reopen
Flights were grounded and theme parks were locked down as Hurricane Milton approached Florida.
Now it has passed and the damage has been assessed, theme parks and airports are starting to reopen.
On Friday, Disney will reopen its four theme parks and shopping centre, and Universal Studios’ theme parks and attractions will resume ‘normal operation’.
Tampa Airport requires repairs but flights are due to resume at 8am on Friday.
Teen arrested after breaking into building in evacuation zone live on Kick stream
Teen floating on sinking plank pulled from water
It was like a scene from Titanic when a teen was pulled from the water in Tampa, Florida.
They were perched on a plank of wood mostly submerged in the murky floodwaters engulfing surrounding homes and cars.
No one else can be seen except the teen and two men, including a sheriff, who came to their rescue on a boat.
As they neared, the teen slipped into the water and swam towards them, chucking their shoes in the process.
The sheriff then pulled them aboard.
Sinkhole leaves 20ft hole on residential street
Sinkholes have appeared across Florida since Hurricane Milton made landfall.
‘Neighbours here were awaken by the sound of water crashing’, a FOX35 reporter Caroline Coles said at the site of sinkhole in Orange County, Florida.
A burst water main has been blamed for the damage to the road in the Chandler Estates neighbourhood of Apopka in the middle of the state.
It’s left the road impassable in the city home to 55,000 people.
Authorities turned off the water supply to prevent further damage.
‘It’s a little bit scary when you drive on that road every day’, one resident said.
A sinkhole also appeared on Highway 17-92 in Volusia County, on the east coast, where flooding occurred.
Death toll rises to 10
Four more deaths have been confirmed, three of them in Volusia County, home to the seaside resort of Daytona Beach and its barrier island.
One person died when a tree fell through the roof of their home during Hurricane Milton.
Rescue workers had to carry people through water when floods submerged homes in the county, while others evacuated on small boats.
A fifth death has also been confirmed in St Lucie County, where tornadoes ripped through a retirement village.
Eight of the 10 deaths so far have been on the east coast of Florida, where evacuation orders were not in place.
Dog rescued from rubble of retirement village destroyed by tornadoes
Barking emerged from the wreck of a mobile home on Thursday morning.
When residents and CBS News reporters sifted through the tangled mess of wood, they found a dog called Benji.
It had been missing since it fled the neighbouring home where its two owners died during a tornado on Wednesday night.
At least six people dead
The death toll is likely to rise as rescue teams clear the rubble, but so far six people are confirmed to have died.
Four of them were killed by tornadoes tearing through a retirement community made of mobile homes in Florida.
At least 12 high-strength tornados hit the area around Spanish Lakes Country Club Village near Fort Piece in the space of 20 minutes.
CCTV footage shows entire branches being ripped from trees when one of the 27 tornadoes to hit St Lucie County touched ground.
It is on the opposite coast to where the storm made landfall hours later, so residents had not been ordered to evacuate.
Two people died in St Peterburg in the Tampa Bay area, one of which was a ‘medical’ incident’ while the other was ‘found in a park’, Chief of Police Anthony Holloway said.
Hurricane Milton leaves behind a trail of destruction as the skies clear over Florida
The latest satellite images show Florida emerging from beneath the clouds of Hurricane Milton as it blows across the Atlantic, just north of The Bahamas.
It’s left towns and cities littered with toppled trees, dislodged roofs, shattered windows, furniture, and even entire homes washed away by storm surges.
Millions of people have been left without power, which will take weeks or months to restore in some places.
‘We’ll probably find bodies,’ police chief says
Bradenton Police Chief Melanie Bevan said the situation in her town is bleak.
She told BBC Radio: ‘What we’ll probably be finding in the morning are bodies.
‘I don’t think it’s going to be rescue once the storm subsides … it’s going to be recovery.’
‘It’s pretty ugly out there.’
London football game sees team arriving later than normal – due to Hurricane Milton
American football fans in the UK might be disappointed to know the Jaguars have delayed their flight to London due to inclement weather.
A spokesman for the Florida-based NFL team said the Jaguars’ flight was ‘slightly’ delayed due to weather.
They’ll still face off against the Bears in London on Sunday.
Moment NBC news crew forced to run for cover due to explosion
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