Hurricane Milton made a mess of Central Florida -- but it could have been worse

ORLANDO, Fla. — Roberto Ramirez returned Thursday morning from his overnight shift in a local hospital to find water up to his knees in front of his Altamonte Springs home.

The scene has become all too familiar to Ramirez and other residents of Spring Oaks, a neighborhood west of Interstate 4 that floods during major storms.

”It brings back a lot of terrible memories from Ian,” Ramirez said, referring to the hurricane that swept through Central Florida two years ago.

But Spring Oaks’ familiar misery was not shared by many other neighborhoods in the Orlando area, which mostly weathered Hurricane Milton well despite dire earlier predictions. Milton tacked south of the most populated areas, and moved through the area much quicker than 2022’s Ian, leaving power outages and debris-filled roads but little destruction in its wake.

Elsewhere the situation was worse. Making landfall Wednesday evening south of Tampa Bay as a strong Category 3, Milton killed at least 11 people statewide, including four in Volusia County.

Milton also caused widespread damage on the Gulf Coast, ripping the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays’ Tropicana Stadium, and spawned tornadoes across Central and South Florida, particularly along the east coast.

The storm hit as the state was still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which struck just two weeks ago. Helene didn’t do a lot of damage in the Orlando area either, but caused horrific flooding in Florida’s Big Bend and dumped massive amounts of rain across the south, killing more than 200 people, becoming the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005.

Gov. Ron DeSantis compared the two storms during a press conference Thursday morning in Fort Pierce, noting that the storm surge produced by Milton didn’t match Helene’s.

“I mean, Helene was producing major surge all across the west coast of Florida, and then in the Big Bend, it was just biblical,” DeSantis said.

Still, Milton packed a punch in Central Florida, passing about 30 miles south of the city at 2 a.m. Peak gusts hit 87 miles per hour at Orlando International Airport and 79 miles per hour in Melbourne.

Rainfall amounts varied greatly across the region, with 2 to 4 inches reported in Osceola County, 6 to 11 inches in the Orlando area and 12 to 15 inches in Volusia County.

The storm exited Florida shortly after 4 a.m. Thursday as a Category 1 hurricane, passing just north of Cape Canaveral.

By Thursday afternoon, many Central Florida residents were still in the dark, including about half of utility customers in Lake County, 20% of those in Orange County, a third of Seminole County and a little more than 10% of Osceola, according to the website poweroutage.us, which collects data from utilities nationwide.

Roadways flooded in some parts of the region, including on College Park’s Edgewater Drive. Resident Paul White, who went for his typical morning walk on Thursday morning, said the flooding wasn’t as high as after Hurricane Ian two years ago, but deep enough that two teenagers with poles caught a fish while standing on the submerged double-yellow lines.

White’s home lost power as Milton struck, and an oak tree across the street crashed into his yard.

“I don’t think we did too bad,” he said. “All in all, my heart goes out to those on the coasts and in low-lying areas that really got battered.”

Still, life began to return to normal quickly for many Central Florida residents on Thursday — with some inconveniences. In Orlando, city officials urged residents to refrain from washing laundry and dishes, taking showers and flushing toilets to prevent further straining water reclamation systems.

On Thursday, crews worked to remove 27 trees blocking roads throughout the city. More than 400 traffic signals were also not working after the storm. And officials reminded drivers to remove cars that parked in five downtown parking garages during the storm by noon Friday.

Orlando International Airport announced that arrivals would resume Thursday evening, and departures on Friday morning.

The major theme parks also were slated to reopen on Friday after closing on Thursday.

“We’re grateful Walt Disney World Resort weathered the storm, and we are currently assessing the impacts to our property to prepare for reopening the theme parks, Disney Springs and possibly other areas on Friday, October 11,” a statement on the theme park’s website read. “Our hearts are with our fellow Floridians who were impacted by this storm.”

In many ways, Orange County has been preparing for Hurricane Milton for several years, investing in flood mitigation projects in some of its most flood-prone areas. The investments paid dividends when Milton roared into Central Florida. When the storm left and the sun rose, county roads were littered with twigs and leaves shaken from trees but the Orlo Vista neighborhood, notoriously swamped in recent storms, suffered much less damage than during Ian.

The county spent about $23.2 million on a flood mitigation project in Orlo Vista that is nearly complete.

Reams Road, in Horizon West in west Orange, “was closed for almost a month after (Hurricane) Ian and it’s passable this morning,” said Commissioner Nicole Wilson, whose west Orange district includes the former trouble spot.

Wilson said she lobbied Public Works to pay special attention to flooding issues around Reams. Orange County and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District received emergency permission from the South Florida Water Management District to pump the wetlands on the north and south side of Reams Road into the tourism district’s system to the south.

While there was consensus that things could have been much worse, 600 properties were damaged in Orange County, Mayor Jerry Demings said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

Damage was also less than anticipated in other parts of Central Florida that have flooded during previous storms.

In downtown Kissimmee’s business strip and the neighborhoods surrounding Kissimmee Lakefront Park, the extent of the damage was limited to debris and small puddles.

William Acevedo and his neighbor Edwin Carrion, were raking leaves off their yard and removing sandbags that lined their homes Thursday morning.

“We didn’t have any damage, especially compared to other years like Ian and Irma,” Carrion said. “During Ian we had the water come up almost into my garage.”

They live in Kissimmee’s Pebble Point, a neighborhood that flooded in 2022 during Hurricane Ian and had mandatory evacuations.

Carrion said he’s lived in there for over 13 years and has grown wary of hurricanes.

“I was a little bit scared,” he said. “But we knew everything was going to be all right because we have survived others, so we just had to take precautions.”

In St. Cloud, Lucia Thomas, who was picking up debris around her East Lakeshore Boulevard home while her husband cleared the roof, said they considered fleeing south before deciding to ride it out at home.

“Outside of the strong winds and rain, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” Thomas said. Living mere yards from East Lake Toho, she remembered waters approaching her home following Ian.

“Not this one,” she said.

Nearby, Doug and Marsha Dirks were helping Marsha’s sister, Margo Jorgensen, clear branches and brush that littered her yard after. Jorgensen lost power overnight but got it back early Thursday afternoon as the Dirks came from the nearby Remington community to help.

Doug Dirks compared Milton to Hurricane Charley, which he said claimed part of his roof when it hit Central Florida in 2004. Milton, he said, “wasn’t nearly as bad.”

“Mother Nature was just pruning my trees this time,” Dirks said.

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(Staff writers Ryan Gillespie, James Wilkins, Kevin Spear, Natalia Jaramillo, and Cristobal Rios contributed to this report.)

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