The US Coast Guard has rescued a man who was left clinging to an ice box in the Gulf of Mexico after his boat was stranded in waters roiled by Hurricane Milton.
The man was aboard a fishing vessel that became disabled on Wednesday off Madeira Beach, Florida, hours before the hurricane made landfall, according to coast guard press officer Nicole Groll.
The man, who was not identified, was able to radio the coast guard station in nearby St Petersburg before contact was lost at about 6.45pm.
But on Thursday searchers located the man about 30 miles (48km) off Longboat Key, Florida, clinging to an open cooler chest, a video clip provided by the coast guard shows.
In the video, a coast guard diver was lowered from a helicopter and swam to the man to pick him up.
“This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” coast guard official Dana Grady said.
Florida residents were continuing to repair the damage from Hurricane Milton and figure out what to do next on Friday after the storm smashed through coastal communities and tore homes to pieces, flooded streets and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes.
At least 13 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 materialised.
Arriving just two weeks after the devastating Hurricane Helene, the system knocked out power to more than three 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 on 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.
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 on 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 on 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 have followed 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 neighbourhood 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 on 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," Ms Shannon said. "What is my next move? What am I going to do?"
