Battered Florida begins long recovery from back-to-back major hurricanes

By Brad Brooks and Leonora LaPeter Anton

FORT PIERCE, Florida (Reuters) -Millions of Floridians began a long and difficult recovery on Friday after the state's second major hurricane in two weeks, restoring power, shoveling mud from flooded homes and clearing mountains of debris left by Milton and Helene.

While some coastal cities such as Tampa were spared the catastrophic surge of seawater that many forecasters had feared, Milton brought widespread flooding and touched off a spate of deadly tornadoes on Florida's east coast, killing at least 16 people and leaving millions without power.

Many areas had still been clearing debris and repairing damage from Hurricane Helene, which slammed into the Gulf Coast late last month before battering much of the U.S. Southeast.

During a 72-hour period this week, the Florida Department of Transportation removed 2,200 truckloads of debris - more than 40,000 cubic yards - from Pinellas County barrier islands near the mouth of Tampa Bay, Governor Ron DeSantis told a briefing. A cubic yard is about twice the size of a washing machine.

Utility workers repaired downed power lines and damaged cellphone towers, while crews from government agencies and residents armed with chainsaws cleared downed trees and mopped up flooded neighborhoods in cities and towns swamped by heavy rains.

The number of Florida homes and businesses without electricity had dropped to about 2.27 million by late Friday morning, according to website PowerOutage.us, from a high of more than 3.4 million in Milton's immediate aftermath. Some customers had already been waiting days for power to be restored after Helene hit the area.

More than 6,500 National Guard members have been activated in 23 Florida counties, officials said.

President Joe Biden will visit Florida on Sunday to survey the damage, the White House said.

In St. Pete Beach, a barrier-island city, clearing debris from the twin storms will take weeks, Mayor Adrian Petrila told ABC News.

"It's going to be a very long time for us," he said, adding that most of the city's houses were uninhabitable with no sewer or water service.

In Sarasota County, a bridge to the hard-hit barrier islands reopened on Friday morning to allow residents to return to their properties, though officials warned that water and power services would likely be limited.

In Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, workers have visited more than 450 homes and businesses to assess damage since Thursday, said C.K. Moore, an emergency-management official. There were 13 structures known to be destroyed and another 111 with major damage.

Unlike Helene, whose storm surge caused most of its damage along the coast, Milton's strong winds and extreme rainfall created problems across the county, Moore said. Plant City, more than 20 miles (32 km) inland, experienced major flooding.

"We're just hoping for a period of calm so we can clean this stuff up and give residents a sense of normalcy," said Moore, adding that the county has opened additional landfills to accommodate storm debris.

The city of Tampa does not yet know the costs of the storm cleanup, according to communications director Adam Smith. The work will likely require months of clearing downed trees and vegetation on top of removing household debris left from Helene, which is the city's first priority, he said.

The city, however, avoided a calamitous storm surge after Milton's path shifted east hours before landfall, taking the hurricane south of Tampa Bay itself.

Melissa Wolcott-Martino, 81, a retired magazine editor in St. Petersburg across the bay from Tampa, told Reuters on Friday she is one of the lucky ones after returning to her coastal home and finding it largely unscathed.

"It's an absolute miracle, because we were expecting a 10-foot surge and that would be over our roof," she said. "We live right on the water. And our neighborhood has piles and piles and piles of rubbish and furniture stacked up from the last one."

The Tampa zoo reported on its website that all of its 1,000 animals were safe but the grounds remained closed on Friday as recovery teams assessed damage.

The animals, including a dozen Caribbean flamingos, zebras, elephants, giraffes and other critters, will remain in their barns and shelters on site.

Nearly 1,200 people have been rescued since Milton made landfall on Wednesday evening, according to DeSantis' office.

CLIMATE CHANGE FUELED MILTON

The fifth-most-intense Atlantic hurricane on record, Milton could cost insurers between $30 billion and $60 billion, Morningstar DBRS analyst Marcos Alvarez said on Friday. That projection was lower than the up to $100 billion estimated by the firm before the storm's arrival.

Milton's rapid intensification from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 monster in less than 24 hours was the latest example of a worrying trend that has seen storms growing more powerful, more quickly, due to climate change. Milton made landfall as a major Category 3 hurricane.

The Biden administration said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would need additional funding from the U.S. Congress and called on lawmakers, who are on recess, to return to Washington.

There were at least 16 hurricane-related deaths, CBS News cited the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as saying.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Fort Pierce and Leonora LaPeter Anton in St. Petersburg; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, Helen Coster and Jonathan Allen in New York, and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Joseph Ax and Costas Pitas; Editing by Frank McGurty, Rod Nickel and Sandra Maler)