There wasn’t much more than a pile of debris from shattered homes when Vickie Ward returned Friday to her Grove City, Florida, neighborhood after Hurricane Milton.
“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 damage in her coastal town located about one hour northwest of Fort Myers.
Ward is among thousands of residents in the Sunshine State who are starting to return to their homes to assess the impact of Milton’s destructive force. The hurricane made landfall earlier this week as a dangerous Category 3 storm, claiming at least 17 lives, and destroying homes, roads and power lines.
In St. Petersburg, storm chaser Brandon Clement says he met several residents standing in front of where their homes “used to be” because they are no more than a pile of debris.
“It’s not a pretty sight. It’s really a heartbreaking moment to see,” said Clement, adding that Milton was a “catastrophic hurricane that impacted a lot of people across a very large area.”
They don’t have a place to go
Angie Dooley, 20, and her father are seeking shelter Friday after their ground floor apartment in Daytona Beach got flooded.
“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 said. Most of their furniture, clothes and keepsakes, including her baby photos, are destroyed, she said.
Dooley and her 55-year-old father, Scott, fled the apartment early Thursday morning when floodwaters began rising. Since then, they have slept in their car and a hotel room, but they don’t have a room booked for Friday night.
“I’m just having to take it day by day,” Scott Dooley said.
After Rina Tabak’s home in Tampa was destroyed and she had to evacuate by boat during Hurricane Helene, she thought her family could be safe at her mother-in-law’s home in nearby northwestern Hillsborough County.
But that home, which Tabak said was not under an evacuation order, was severely damaged during Milton. Parts of the home’s roof collapsed or landed in the backyard, she said.
Her family can’t live at either of the homes and are staying at a hotel. But they know it will be months before either home is safe for them to return.
“I just want a place that’s safe and just can just kind of settle in. The dogs can settle. Our daughter can settle and get back to work. Have a sense of normalcy,” Tabak said.
“I’m done. I’m done for this year,” Tabak said about the hurricanes.
They are thinking about leaving Florida
Near Sarasota, Cheryl Bernatowicz had prepared her home for possible flooding but never imagined the storm’s strong winds would rip off its roof.
“It actually ripped the concrete right out of the ground – like the posts for the carports, they totally got ripped with the concrete out of the ground – and the whole entire roof just got completely tore off,” Bernatowicz told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.
Her home in North Port, Florida, has been damaged multiple times by storms and she had just finished paying off repairs from Hurricane Ian in 2022. Now, Bernatowicz says she doesn’t know if she wants to live in Florida anymore.
“To be honest with you, I don’t want to … It’s my fourth hurricane and four times I’ve gotten demolished. So after that, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it really does,” she said.
Some just started evacuating due to flooding
As some residents try to assess the damage, others were rescued by first responders from flooded homes on Friday or are evacuating because of the looming threat of cresting rivers.
East of Tampa, in Valrico, Florida, Ralph Genito and his wife quickly packed as many of their clothes as they could in trash bags on Friday. Sheriff’s deputies took them back to their home on an airboat after their neighborhood flooded by storm surge from Hurricane Milton and the Alafia River overbank flow.
The river has risen around 15 feet since Wednesday night, and crossed major flood stage on Thursday, CNN previously reported.
“This area is not supposed to get this way, it’s not supposed to. We’re the last road supposedly that floods,” Genito said.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister urged residents who live near rivers and creeks 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 CNN.
Genito said the water started rising Thursday. In a matter of hours, he said, it was 3-feet high and had flooded his daughter’s tiny house, which is next to his home. At that point, the family rushed out, worrying they could be trapped. The interior of his home was still mostly untouched Friday morning, but Genito said they could not stay. The septic tank and generator were underwater, he said.
“I feel for everybody that’s been through the same thing. I really 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.”
CNN’s Isabel Rosales and Mounira Elsamra contributed to this report.