Milton leaves at least 16 dead, millions without power in Florida

The death toll from Hurricane Milton has risen to at least 16, officials in Florida said Friday, and millions were still without power as residents began the painful process of piecing their lives back together.

More than two million households and businesses were still without power, officials said, and some areas in the path that the monster storm blasted through the state remained flooded.

"There's places where water is continuing to rise," Governor Ron DeSantis warned on Friday. But while the storm was "significant," he said, "thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario."

In a White House briefing, US President Joe Biden said experts estimated the cost of storm damage at $50 billion.

The federal response to the huge storm -- and to Hurricane Helene, which devastated parts of the US southeast just two weeks earlier -- has taken on an increasingly political edge, and Biden said he would visit Florida on Sunday.

Amid questions as to whether the federal response is adequately funded, the president called on Congress to "step up" its efforts, particularly to shore up hard-hit small businesses.

Former president Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the Biden-Harris administration has diverted hurricane response funds to care for migrants, drawing pushback even from some Republican officials.

Asked whether Trump was singularly to blame for a dangerous swirl of misinformation, Biden replied, "No... but he has the biggest mouth."

- Hope amid desolation -

On Siesta Key, a beautiful barrier island near Sarasota where the storm made landfall, Milton left a desolate landscape.

Some streets were still flooded on Friday. Fallen trees and debris -- sofas, beds, chairs and appliances, much of it left behind by Helene -- were strewn haphazardly on roadsides.

"It's just terrible," John Maloney, 61, who owns a home remodeling company, said as he removed tree limbs from a seaside house he was working on. "But I think we'll rebuild again."

And 67-year-old resident Mark Horner sounded a note of optimism, telling AFP: "Our paradise will come back."

Tornadoes, not floodwaters, were behind many of the storm's deaths.

In Fort Pierce, on Florida's Atlantic coast, four people died in a tornado spawned by Milton.

"They did find some people just outside dead, in a tree," 70-year-old resident Susan Stepp told AFP. "I wish they would have evacuated."

- 'Suddenly you have nothing' -

At least six people were killed in St. Lucie County, four in Volusia County, two in Pinellas County, and one each in Hillsborough, Polk, Orange and Citrus counties, officials said.

The storm downed power lines, shredded the roof of the Tampa baseball stadium and inundated homes.

The National Weather Service issued a record 126 tornado warnings across the state Wednesday, wrote hurricane expert Michael Lowry.

"It is not easy to think you have everything and suddenly you have nothing," said Lidier Rodriguez, whose Tampa Bay apartment was flooded.

Search operations were ongoing Friday -- DeSantis said 1,600 people had been brought to safety -- and the Coast Guard reported the spectacular rescue of a boat captain who rode out the storm, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the shore, clinging to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico.

"This man survived in a nightmare scenario," Dana Grady of the Coast Guard's St. Petersburg sector said in a statement.

- 'We'll probably sell' -

Experts said Friday that human-induced climate change made Hurricane Milton wetter and windier.

What would have been a Category 2 storm, the World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists said in a report, instead grew into a more destructive Category 3, on a five-point scale.

Milton left some weary Floridians fed up and others digging in for the long haul.

In Orlando, on the east coast, 58-year-old Joe Meyer was loading his car after five days in a hotel to return home to Madeira Beach, south of Tampa.

Helene hit his house "like a bomb" and he had to swim on a dark night to a neighbor's house. Milton left less water but more wind damage.

"We'll probably sell... it's just become too much for us," he said -- before adding that the family likely would move to a less flood-prone location not far away.