SIESTA KEY: The death toll from Hurricane Milton rose to 16 on Friday, as residents began the painful process of piecing their lives and homes back together.

Nearly 2.5 million households and businesses were without power, and some areas in the path cut through the state by the monster storm from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean remained flooded.

Milton crashed into the Gulf coast late on Wednes­day as a category 3 storm, smashing communities still reeling from Hurri­cane Helene two weeks ago, which killed 237 people across the US southeast, including in Florida.

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.

Resident Mark Horner, who moved there six years ago, said while his house was largely spared, the island “got hit really hard” and people were reassessing the future.

But the 67-year-old sounded a note of optimism: “Our paradise will come back. It’s just a little shocking to absorb it.”

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 said. “I wish they would have evacuated.”

The storm downed po­wer lines, shredded the roof of the Tampa baseball stadium and inundated hom­es, but Florida avoided the catastrophic devastation that officials had feared.

“The storm was significant, but thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario,” Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters.

The weather service issued a record 126 tornado warnings across the state on Wednesday.

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

The coast guard reported the spectacular rescue of a boat captain who rode out the storm clinging to a cooler in the Gulf of Mexico.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2024