Residents clean up and figure out what's next after Hurricane Milton

Florida residents repaired damage from Hurricane Milton and tried to figure out what to do next Friday after the storm smashed through coastal communities and tore homes to pieces, flooded streets and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes.

Florida residents repaired damage from Hurricane Milton and tried to figure out what to do next Friday after the storm smashed through coastal communities and tore homes to pieces, flooded streets and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes.

At least eight people were dead, but many expressed relief that Milton wasn't worse. The hurricane spared densely populated Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.

Arriving just two weeks after the devastating Hurricane Helene, the system flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays ' baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.

As the cleanup continued, over 2.5 million customers in Florida remained without power Friday morning, according to poweroutage.us. But the state's vital tourism industry started to return to normal, with several theme parks preparing to reopen.

A flood of vehicles headed south Thursday evening on Interstate 75, the main highway that runs through the middle of the state, as relief workers and evacuated residents returned to assess the aftermath. At times, some cars even drove on the left shoulder of the road. Bucket trucks and fuel tankers streamed by, along with portable bathroom trailers and a convoy of emergency vehicles.

As residents raced back to find out whether their homes were destroyed or spared, finding gas was still a challenge. Fuel stations were still closed as far away as Ocala, more than a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of where the storm made landfall as a Category 3 near Siesta Key in Sarasota County on Wednesday night.

Natasha Ducre and her husband, Terry, were just feeling lucky to be alive. Milton peeled the tin roof off of their cinderblock home in their neighbourhood a few blocks north of the Manatee River, about a 45-minute drive south of Tampa. She pushed to leave as the storm barrelled toward them Wednesday night after he resisted evacuating their three-bedroom house where he grew up and where the couple lived with their three kids and two grandchildren. She believes the decision saved their lives.