Floridians take stock of Hurricane Milton damage

BRANDON, Florida (KXAN) — Tammy Spooner has lived in the Tampa metro area for the past 20 years, experiencing multiple hurricanes cross over her home in that time. Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm, was different than any other hurricane Spooner had faced.

“It was pretty scary. It was probably one of the worst ones I’ve been through,” Spooner explained. Her house was thankfully spared from serious damage, but it was the first time she ever saw her street flood.

“We’ve never had that before. I mean, we’re in a no-flood zone, we’re not even close to one,” Spooner said.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management designates which areas are part of a flood zone and an evacuation zone. The website Know Your Zone lays out which areas are most at risk of flooding.

Spooner and her family live east of Tampa in Brandon, Florida. She lives outside of the evacuation and flood zones, but Milton still brought destruction to her area. Neighbors on the other side of her street saw a foot of water enter their home. A giant tree fell onto one home, severely damaging the roof.

The heavy rainfall flooded her street and damaged some cars to the point they were not starting Thursday morning. Her family had some cars take on water but was still able to start the engine.

Currently, there are more than half a million homes without power in Tampa, according to the Tampa Energy outage map .

Spooner said she plans to start cleaning up the debris left behind by Milton, and she hopes her power returns soon.

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