ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke rom St. Petersburg, Florida, on Friday giving an update of Hurricane Milton recovery, urging residents to avoid the hazards that have already led to post-storm fatalities.

Hurricane Milton hit the Gulf Coast near Sarasota late Wednesday and the state has been working on recovery operations since it left the state early Thursday morning off of Cape Canaveral.

“While the worst-case scenario was thankfully avoided with this storm, this storm did still bring destruction and damage in various parts of the state, tornadoes touched down in many communities across South and Central Florida,” he said. “I went to St Lucie County yesterday, they just had a massive tornado come through a community and it left (six) people dead. It’s very difficult.”

As many as 14 people have been reported dead from various county sheriff’s that may be storm related, but the state’s official county doesn’t reflect that yet. Some of those have been because of post-storm cleanup.

“What we are also seeing is we’re now in the period where you have fatalities that are preventable,” he said. “We have had fatalities because of interaction with downed power lines and water. We are seeing hazards that are still there, so please exercise caution. Don’t wade into flood waters. Be careful how you’re using ladders. Use generators properly. Make sure it’s outside your home. Don’t run that generator inside.”

He said the situation has been stabilized, and urged residents to make proper decisions knowing that hazards still remain.

“We see debris, probably not as much debris, quite frankly, as I anticipated 48 hours ago when you were looking at what the storm was doing, but you have a lot of debris,” he said. “If you have debris interacting with power lines, don’t mess with it. People will come and be able to get that, to get that handled. So please exercise caution if you need assistance with things like helping with your house.”

The state has a phone number 1-800-GET-HOPE (1-800-438-4673) that people can call and be connected with a bevy of volunteer organizations. There is also the state assistance information line at 1-800-342-3557.

“Post-disaster fatalities are preventable,” said Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie. “We will have volunteer organizations ready to go. We already have them ready to go, to come in and help you. … We will match up … the right resources at the right place at the right time.”

He said some roadways remain flooded, and to be wary when on the road.

“Please make sure you do not drive through flooding areas,” he said. “Accidents due to flood waters are 100% preventable, just like the fatalities related to cleaning up your home are 100% preventable.”

He noted that power lines could be down inside the water and wrapped up in trees.

“So please, please do not go out in flooded waters. Do not cut things out of trees that have power lines in them. If you have lost power and want to use a generator as a backup, please use it safely,” he said.

Generators needs to be 20 feet away from any open door, including the garage. If people need to refuel, be sure to give the generator 20 minutes to cool down, and need to have a a carbon monoxide detector inside the home.

He also urged people to stay off the roads if they don’t need to be there.

“Don’t disaster sightsee,” he said. “We have a lot of people that are out here doing great work, well over 50,000 probably closer to 60, 65,000 responders, electrical workers, all doing really, really good work right now. But we need you to stay out of our way. Just simply put, we don’t need you out there sightseeing. We saw yesterday in Siesta Key, people driving around, videoing and all that. Stay out of the way. We really, really need your cooperation on this for assistance after the storm.”

Flooding across the state was partially due to storm surge on the coast, but a lot more because of rainfall.

“We also had flooding that occurred along the coast and in low-lying areas inland, spurred by record setting rainfall total,” DeSantis said. “So you did not see the worst-case, or even really any-case surge in the Tampa Bay area. I think the surge was negative because of the way the storm entered the peninsula and it sucked the water out. But on the north side of this storm, you had massive amounts of rain that was that was dropping. So you had flooding events just different than what you would have had with storm surge.”

Water is continuing to rise because of the rain in both West and Central Florida.

Wind damage was heavy as well, including a crane that was knocked down in downtown St. Petersburg, which was seen in the background of DeSantis during his press conference.

“Obviously behind me here. I mean, that’s wind damage when you have a crane get knocked into a building,” he said.

Rescue missions continued Thursday with more than 6,500 Florida National Guard members and other resources.

“Over 1,600 individuals have been rescued, over 140 animals from flood waters, rubble or other hazards,” he said.

He said 1.6 million accounts had been restored, but as of 9 a.m., there were still 2.4 customers out of power.

“My understanding is that even where the storm made landfall, like Sarasota, there wasn’t as much damage to the power infrastructure. So I think you’re going to see some progress there as well,” he said.

After the storm, the state clear more than 12,000 miles of road in less than 12 hours including nearly 2,000 bridge inspections.

Airports are resuming operations as of Friday with Sarasota-Bradenton expected to reopen Saturday and St. Pete-Clearwater on Friday evening.

DeSantis said that while damage was not as bad as Hurricane Ian, which took a similar path in 2022, there still will be a lot of needs, and fatigue having two major hurricanes within two weeks.

“I know people have been working around the clock. Just when you started getting a little bit of normalcy, after Helene, when things started to maybe stabilize, you turned around and had to deal with this other menacing storm, Hurricane Milton,” he said. “There’s damage. There’s a lot that’s going to need to be done. We did not get the worst-case scenario, but we did get hit, and we’re going to have to work to bounce back.”

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