Hurricane Milton slams into Florida, the latest blow to homeowners already reeling from Helene’s destruction

• Hurricane Milton barreled into Florida’s west coast Wednesday.
• The storm made landfall as a category 3 hurricane.
• It’s the second massive storm to strike the region in two weeks.

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm.

The monster hurricane slammed into the state’s west coast, near Siesta Key in Sarasota County, unleashing heavy winds and a flurry of tornadoes and threatening to further devastate an area still recovering from Hurricane Helene two weeks ago.

Milton had “explosively” intensified over the Gulf of Mexico into a Category 5 storm earlier this week, according to the National Hurricane Center, spinning up peak winds of up to 180 mph. When it made landfall, Milton still pummeled the Tampa Bay area and southwest Florida with high winds reaching up to 120 mph and blanketed the state in heavy rain.

The storm could also trigger widespread flooding and surges as high as 15 feet along the Florida coastline, which the National Hurricane Center has warned could be “catastrophic.”

Across the state, Floridians were racing to comply with evacuation orders, obtain gas from depleted petrol pumps, and bracing for lost power. Even in counties along Florida’s eastern Atlantic coast, which was further from the storm’s central eye, a series of dangerous tornadoes decimated some homes and sent residents seeking shelter.

Dante Sacks, a 25-year-old resident of Parkland, a city in Broward County where conditions had begun to deteriorate by Wednesday evening, said roughly half a dozen of his loved ones spent most of the day Tuesday evacuating cities in the storm zone such as St. Petersburg, Siesta Key, and Fort Myers. He told Business Insider his aunts and uncles made it to Miami ahead of the storm’s arrival after a “horrendous” drive, but had had no idea what kind of damage it could do to their homes.

“At the end of the day, we’re just praying that all of our family is fine, that they’ve all evacuated, that their own homes are safe,” he said.

They left most of their possessions behind, he added, save for their clothes and electronic devices.

Sacks estimated the damage to their properties could collectively reach into the millions and said the family was hoping insurance would cover the inevitable losses. It’s created “an insane amount of stress,” he said.

‘I’ve never really been nervous about a storm until now’

After Hurricane Helene struck Florida in late September, some homeowners in the Sunshine State told Business Insider that they were reconsidering whether to stay in Florida altogether.

The back-to-back storms could deal a serious blow to Florida’s volatile real estate market, even though housing prices don’t appear to have been drastically impacted yet, and the state continues to beckon new residents.

Still, many homeowners have been grappling with increasing chances of catastrophic weather and skyrocketing insurance costs.

Natalie Schwartz, 24, and her husband, Brett, are two such homeowners who are waiting to find out how costly the storm may prove to be. The first-time home buyers, who are sheltering in Tampa with Schwartz’s mother and don’t have flood insurance, peered through the windows of their house Wednesday night as they watched wind gusts whip up debris in the backyard, tear fronds off their palm trees, and cause the street lights out front to flicker on and off — an “eerie” reminder, Schwartz said, that their electricity could go out at any moment.

The region had already made a last-minute push to clean up remnant debris from Helene, like fallen trees, drywall, appliances, and broken furniture, before Milton could transform them into dangerous projectiles. But Schwartz said people didn’t take the last storm seriously enough, and this time weren’t taking chances as they battled “chaos and gridlock” on the roads and in supermarkets.

As Milton made landfall, Schwartz and her family heard several ominous noises outside, which Schwartz described as “booms,” raising the specter that something had impacted the house — possibly the roof, she speculated. Throughout the area, many of her friends have texted to say they’ve already lost power. “One is currently reading a book with a flashlight,” she said.

For Schwartz, the thought of what will happen to the community where she grew up is the most sobering. “It’s going to be underwater,” she said. “I’ve never really been nervous about a storm until now.”

FEMA is ready, but says hurricane season isn’t over

The succession of storms had raised concerns about government relief funding, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas saying last week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not have enough funding to last through the hurricane season, The Associated Press reported, which ends on Nov. 30.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden wrote a letter to Congress — which is in recess until after the election — urging it to allocate more resources to both FEMA and the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) disaster loan program.

FEMA insisted Monday it had the “capacity to manage multiple simultaneous disasters,” including Helene and Milton.

But The New York Times reported Tuesday the agency is facing staff shortages. In a press briefing Wednesday, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said the agency had 1,000 personnel already on the ground in Florida and had sent an additional 1,200 for search and rescue efforts in response to Milton.

The agency also launched its own fact-checking page to combat misinformation. It dispelled rumors spread by former President Donald Trump, including false claims that relief funds were being diverted to migrants and that disaster survivors would only receive $750.

Criswell told CNN Tuesday she was concerned the rhetoric could convince people not to register for assistance.

As for FEMA funding, Criswell noted during the briefing that there is currently $11 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund and said she’s evaluating whether it will be necessary to ask Congress for more.

“The funding is there to support Helene and Milton,” Criswell said. “What I want to make sure I have available is enough funding to support another event, considering that we are still in hurricane season.”