The storm is on its way out across the Atlantic on Friday.
Milton did not experience the catastrophic flash flood that had been feared, but it came only two weeks after Hurricane Helene, and the clean-up work is expected to take both weeks and months.
– It opens your eyes to what mother earth can do, says Chase Pierce from St. Petersburg to Reuters.
Milton’s ravages are expected to cost insurance companies up to $100 billion, according to analysts. This corresponds to NOK 1,083 billion. By comparison, the oil fund is worth just over NOK 19,000 billion.
At least 16 died
At least 16 people have lost their lives as a result of Milton, state authorities in Florida say CBS News.
At least six people have been confirmed dead in the county of St. Lucie on the Atlantic coast, which was hit by tornadoes in connection with the hurricane, reports NBC News. In St. Petersburg on the coast towards the Gulf of Mexico, two people lost their lives in the storm, the police said.
North of St. Petersburg, one person died when a tree fell on a car, while the sheriff in Volusia County, northeast of Orlando, reports three deaths.
In the Gulf of Mexico, a man managed to alert the Coast Guard before his boat was taken by the hurricane. When the man was found almost 50 kilometers off the coast, he was clinging to a freezer box, while the boat had disappeared.
In addition to claiming several lives, Milton has also caused material damage, including at the stadium of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball club.
Downgraded in strength
After being a category 5 hurricane, Milton was downgraded to category 3 before it reached the coast south of the big city of Tampa on Thursday night Norwegian time.
The storm could have been worse, says Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
– Milton was significant in strength, but fortunately it was not the worst possible scenario, he said at a press conference on Thursday morning.
He then said that it did not yet appear that Milton would cause as much damage as Helene, which also hit several other states when it hit the south coast.
With Milton’s landfall, 2024 marks the sixth time in history that three hurricanes have been recorded to have made landfall in Florida in the same year. In 2004, it was close to four, but Ivan came ashore just over the border into the neighboring state of Alabama.
Politicized hurricanes
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the hurricane.
“The federal government has not done what it is supposed to do, especially when it comes to North Carolina,” Trump said on Thursday.
Harris accuses Trump of lying about the government’s response.
– In the last two weeks, since Hurricane Helene and now just after Milton, we have unfortunately seen people playing political games, said Harris.
Politicians in both parties have in the back of their minds how then President George W. Bush lost support after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. The handling of the crisis received harsh criticism, and Bush did not regain the same popular support as before.
The Biden administration has asked Congress for more money for the federal emergency management agency FEMA.
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