‘Don’t go sightseeing’: US officials warn of preventable deaths after Hurricane Milton

Christal Hayes
Senior journalist

Thank you for joining our live coverage of Hurricane Milton’s aftermath.

We’ll be bringing you continued coverage of the storm in the days ahead as millions remain in the dark in Florida and crews work through debris.

Hurricane Milton spawned at least 45 tornados in Florida that were reported to the National Weather Center’s Storm Prediction Center.

The strongest recorded was an EF3, a rarity in the Sunshine State.

EF3 tornados are considered “severe” by the National Weather Service, with wind speeds ranging from 136-165mph (218-266km/h).

Twisters range from 0 to 5 on the EF scale with the strongest EF5 being measured with higher than 200mph (321km/h). Unlike hurricanes that are measured primarily by wind strength, tornadoes are categorised more by the destruction they leave in their path.

More than 120 tornado warnings were issued across Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival.

Eloise Alanna and Holly Honderich
Reporting from Florida

René Chavez, a 60-year-old retired primary school teacher from Colorado, had a life-long dream to live by the sea.

Her parents recently passed away and she decided to make the move.

René came to Florida just in time to be hit by Hurricane Helene. From the window of her rented home, she watched in horror as the water levels rose, coming closer and closer to her front door. “Nobody warned us” about how bad it would be in Bonita Bay, a coastal community in south Florida near Fort Myers, she says.

She woke up the next day with dead fish on her lawn. This time when news of Milton started to come in she didn’t take the chance. She packed up her things, bundled her dog into the car and drove across the state to wait it out in Fort Lauderdale.

By Friday, she decided it was safe to return to the Gulf Coast.

It’s “been stressful” she says, laughing, adding that she still wants to make Florida home.

René evacuated to a hotel, something others aren’t always able to afford. “I feel sorry for those people who couldn’t.

“Despite the hurricanes, possibilities of tornadoes, and flooding, I feel like I’m in heaven when I’m here. It’s so beautiful and so green and it makes me so happy.”

Some in the area returned Friday to find water and mud covering their homes. Steve told BBC News there is a foot and a half of water inside his home in Bonita Beach. “Streets filled with mud, driveways filled with mud,” he says.

The bridge into the coastal community was blocked, so he walked a mile there and back with a generator and cleaning equipment to begin repairs. For years, the area had mostly escaped any major storm damage.

“Some of my neighbours here, after Ian they said ‘I don’t know how many more we can do,’” he says.

“They were a little bit shellshocked yesterday.”

The Sarasota Bradenton International Airport posted photos on social media showing the airport’s drenched floors, a collapsed roof and mounds of debris on the tarmac.

The regional airport located near where Milton made landfall in Florida “suffered the loss of its entire roof over concourse B that covers the screening checkpoint, and all 13 aircraft loading gates”, it said in a post on X. The airport said it would remain closed until at least next week.

Other affected airports have since re-opened.

Tampa International Airport announced it resumed its first flights this morning since shutting down on Wednesday.

Orlando International Airport said it began accepting “limited domestic flights” as of Thursday.

Image source, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport

Image source, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport

Hurricane Milton may have already left Florida but the storm’s prolonged impacts are still causing flooding and issues across the state.

In Hillsborough County – a Gulf Coast area that includes the city of Tampa – multiple rescues have been conducted today, including a 91-year-old woman who was stuck in her home after a river flooded her community.

The woman lived in Lithia, near the 25-mile long Alafia River that flows into Tampa Bay.

In a video posted on the sheriff’s office social media, external, deputies can be seen carrying her out of a flooded home and bringing her to a boat. Another video of the area showed deputies saving eight people – including a child – from the floodwaters.

Residents in the area are facing over 6 ft (1.8 m) of flooding as the river overflowed from Milton.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office travelled by boat on Friday to ensure everyone made it out of their homes safely after the river flooded.

The US Coast Guard (USCG) says multiple ports have reopened following temporary closures due to Milton.

Key West, Port Everglades, Port Miami and the Miami River are all now operational in Florida.

Georgia’s Brunswick and Savannah ports have reopened, and Charleston and Georgetown ports are now open in South Carolina.

Several closures remain in place in Florida, including St. Petersburg, Fort Myers, the Port of Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Port Canaveral, Jacksonville and Fernandina.

“This is not a time for disaster sightseeing”, the USCG warns. “The Coast Guard and other responders are actively engaged in restoring our waterways and maritime infrastructure. You can help by steering clear.”

Speaking at a news briefing a little earlier, President Biden said initial estimates suggest the hurricane caused about $50bn (£38bn) worth of damage.

He said more funding would need to be approved by Congress following Milton, which hit less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene.

“We’re going to need a lot of help,” he said. “We’re going to need a lot more money as we identify specifically how much is needed.”

Holly Honderich
Reporting from Florida

Kip Lanway, 78, has been living in Florida part time for decades, going back and forth between the Gulf Coast and his Midwestern home state of Michigan before finally settling down in Cape Coral, a small and quiet coastal city.

He’s been lucky as far as hurricanes are concerned, always dodging any serious damage.
But he is considering selling his apartment, fearing he will one day lose it to a storm.

Climate change is intensifying storms, he says, and the risks are getting higher.

Scientists “predicted exactly what was going to happen”, he says.

“The water was going to rise, it was going to get warmer. Look at the Gulf: 85F (27.5C) in October, it’s unheard of. Look at the forest fires,” he says.

But many of Lanway’s neighbours in conservative Florida do not share his views, he said.

“People don’t believe in science, they don’t believe two and two is four,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s incredible.”

A pig tied to a petrol station was rescued on Friday from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.

Residents of Lithia, Florida found the pig and have named it “Millie”.

They also found and aided a donkey and several goats to safety.

US President Joe Biden just provided an update on the federal response to the hurricane.

Reporters asked him about misinformation that’s spread about the storm and the government’s response.

“I think those who have been spreading these lies to try to undermine the opposition are going to pay a price for it,” he said.

Biden pointed to the fact that several mayors and
governors – many of whom are Republicans – have called for the misinformation to stop.

When asked if former President Donald Trump is to blame for spreading such falsehoods, Biden
replied: “He has the biggest mouth.”

The BBC Verify team has been fact-checking some of these hurricane-conspiracy claims:

• No, Hurricane Milton was not ‘engineered’
• How hurricane conspiracy theories took over social media

Holly Honderich
Reporting from Florida

When Cassandre Bennett, 42, returned home last night, driving from Florida’s east coast back to Cape Coral, a coastal city just west of Fort Myers, she expected disaster.
Her pale blue bungalow had been in Evacuation Zone A – meant for the areas that had been most at risk of damage from Hurricane Milton.

But the house had survived mostly unscathed, saved by Milton’s path over Florida, making landfall 128km (80 miles) north in Sarasota.

Still, even after she had left to stay with friends in Jupiter, Cassandre said the past few days had been harrowing as she waited to see what the storm would do.

“Because I’m helpless. What am I going to do? I’m one person,” she said, adding that she was throwing up “every day” because of the stress.

“You’re watching this thing on the radar, getting closer and closer. I didn’t know what I was going to come back to,” she said.

She wants to stay in Florida, where she moved recently from Illinois. But she’s not sure about staying so close to the coast.

“It isn’t worth my life,” she said.

Mark Poynting, Becky Dale, Erwan Rivault and Libby Rogers
BBC Climate & BBC Verify Data Journalism teams

Image source, NASA/ISS

Hurricanes Helene and Milton – which have devastated parts of the south-east United States – have bookended an exceptionally busy period of tropical storms.

In less than two weeks, five hurricanes formed, which is not far off what the Atlantic would typically get in an entire year.

The storms were powerful, gaining strength with rapid speed.

Yet in early September, when hurricane activity is normally at its peak, there were peculiarly few storms.

So, how unusual has this hurricane season been – and what is behind it?

• Find out more about how this hurricane season compares to previous ones here.

Image source, Reuters

US President Joe Biden will travel to Florida on Sunday to visit areas impacted by Hurricane Milton, the White House says.

In a post on X earlier today, Biden said recovery “can be long and difficult”.

“But I want you to know I will do everything in my power to help you put the pieces back together,” he added.

The mayor of Treasure Island in Pinellas County says the area was “spared” from Milton’s worst impacts.

But it didn’t mean that the town got away unscathed.

“We fared much better than we anticipated with Milton, but it was just a double-whammy after the significant impacts of Helene,” Tyler Payne tells the BBC.

He describes walking around a largely empty area in the aftermath of the storm – showing residents heeded advice to leave urgently.

Payne says the assistance offered by all levels of government has been “great so far”.

A baby was born in a Pinellas County hurricane shelter, county officials say.

“We had a beautiful baby girl that was born in one of our shelters,” says Cathie Perkins, director of the county’s emergency management team.

Shelter staff were on hand to help with the delivery, she adds.

“Just beautiful to see that new life in the middle of all of this destruction.”

Around 1,500 people from Clearwater and St. Petersburg are in Pinellas County emergency shelters.

Back again to Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who says “it is tough when you have two back-to-back storms” – in reference to Hurricane Helene last month.

DeSantis says north Florida was also hit by Hurricane Idalia in 2023, and that the people there re-built and got hit a year later, and “it wiped away”.

“So yes, these things are very tough,” he reiterates.

Hurricane Ian was “probably the most significant storm that we’ve had,” he adds, saying they still have people “buying up homes” there.

“There’s always going to be a demand to live in a beautiful part of the world,” the Florida governor adds.

Kevin Guthrie, Florida Division of Emergency’s Management director, is speaking again.

He says “disasters are at a local level” and people need to have contingencies, mentioning construction workers.

They had plenty of notice for this hurricane prior to landfall, Guthrie says, adding there has to “be a point where common sense comes into play”.

“We cannot hold everybody’s hand and do everything for them, that is not the function of government,” he adds.

We’re now hearing from Major General John D. Haas, the Adjutant General of Florida.

He says they’re conducting ongoing response efforts, including carrying out search and rescue, ground and air operations as well as providing humanitarian assistance.

He says they are supporting 23 counties with 192 active missions.

Next up is Melissa Seixas, state president for Duke Energy Florida. She says they had 850,000 customers without power as off 11:00 local time today, adding they have restored power to 350,000 customers.

She adds 16,000 workers were brought into Florida, both before the storm and over the course of yesterday.

Seixas says the number of power outages will decrease quickly.

Image source, Reuters

Kevin Guthrie, Florida Division of Emergency’s management director, is speaking now.

He says “post-disaster fatalities are preventable”.

He reminds people they have organisations that can help people avoid putting themselves in danger.

Before people begin any clean-ups, he says they must take close-up and far-away pictures, both inside and outside the home.

“Please make sure you don’t drive through flooded areas,” he adds, as this can cause preventable accidents.

Guthrie issues further warnings – do not cut things out of trees with power lines or go in water as power lines can be hidden.

To help the various rescue teams, he says “we need you to stay out of our way”.

“We don’t need you out there sightseeing,” Guthrie adds. “We really, really need your cooperation on this.”