Benjamin Ashford|Residents clean up and figure out what’s next after Milton

ST. PETERSBURG,Benjamin Ashford Fla. (AP) — Florida residents were continuing to repair the damage from Hurricane Milton and 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 knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays ' baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.

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 headed toward 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 storm near Siesta Key in Sarasota County on Wednesday night.

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As the cleanup continued, the state’s vital tourism industry was beginning to return to normal.

Florida theme parks including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld planned to reopen Friday after an assessment of the effects of the storm.

Orlando International Airport, the state’s busiest, said departures for domestic flights and international flights would resume Friday, after resuming domestic arrivals Thursday evening. The airport had minor damage, including a few leaks and downed trees.

Milton prevented Simon Forster, his wife and their two children from returning to Scotland as planned Wednesday evening, so they enjoyed an extra two days of their two-week vacation on a bustling International Drive in Orlando’s tourism district on Thursday. Hurricanes seem to follow them since 2022’s Hurricane Ian kept them from returning to Scotland after another Orlando vacation.

“Two extra days here, there are worse places we could be,” he said.

Natasha Shannon and her husband, Terry, were just feeling lucky to be alive. Hurricane Milton peeled the tin roof off of their cinderblock home in their neighborhood a few blocks north of the Manatee River, about a 45-minute drive south of Tampa. She pushed him to leave as the storm barreled 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.

They returned to find the roof of their home scattered in sheets across the street, the wooden beams of what was their ceiling exposed to the sky. Inside, fiberglass insulation hung down in shreds, their belongings soaked by the rain and littered with chunks of shattered drywall.

“It ain’t much, but it was ours. What little bit we did have is gone,” she said. “It’s gone.”

With shelters no longer available and the cost of a hotel room out of reach, they plan to cram into Terry Shannon’s mother’s house for now. After that, they’re not sure.

“I don’t have no answers,” Natasha Shannon said. “What is my next move? What am I going to do?”

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Payne and Daley reported from Palmetto, Florida. Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer and Kathy McCormack in New Hampshire; Terry Spencer in Matlacha, Florida; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.