STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We assess the damage from Hurricane Milton in Florida.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Millions are still without power. At least eight deaths have been attributed to the storm. Five people died when tornadoes touched down in a retirement community in St. Lucie County on Florida's east coast. So this was a serious storm, though not as bad as some feared.
INSKEEP: NPR's Greg Allen went through the storm. He's in St. Petersburg. Hi there, Greg.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: I was watching the forecasts. A storm surge was expected of as much as 15 feet in some places, and at least that didn't happen. Why not?
ALLEN: Well, you know, just a few days ago, Milton was one of the most powerful hurricanes ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico. But as it approached land, it did some things that hurricanes often do - it made this jog. In this case, it was one that took it south of Tampa Bay, which is an area that's really vulnerable to storm surge.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
ALLEN: The hurricane also weakened a bit. But even so, it hit the coast with 125-mile-per-hour winds. But the effect was that the storm surge was much less than it was - than was forecast. It was just 5 to 10 feet above ground level in the area where it made landfall. Tampa Bay, as it turned out, had very little surge. Here's Governor DeSantis.
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RON DESANTIS: You did have storm surge in Sarasota, Venice, Charlotte Harbor and all the way down the west coast of Florida - and some significant storm surge, but not the worst-case scenario of what we were looking at.
ALLEN: Milton did a lot of damage but far less than what was feared.
INSKEEP: Yeah. And I want to pause to respect those who did suffer damage. I know it is serious. I know some lives were lost. But what have you seen around Tampa and St. Pete?
ALLEN: Well, here there are a lot of limbs and trees down, but for the most part, the buildings and other infrastructure held up pretty well against the winds. A construction crane in St. Petersburg toppled into a building, and then the fiberglass roof of the baseball stadium was shredded.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
ALLEN: But homes, on the whole, did pretty well. In St. Petersburg, I talked to Jenna Michael (ph) about what she was seeing in her neighborhood.
JENNA MICHAEL: There's definitely some with trees on their roofs. Like, when we were driving by, we saw some that significantly have damage. But for the most part, it looks like it's mostly downed power lines, downed trees, downed fences and not catastrophic damage to homes.
ALLEN: She had a 50-foot oak tree fall on her property. Thankfully, it missed her house, though.
INSKEEP: I did hear you say, though, yesterday, 19 inches of rain in St. Petersburg, among other places. Can that lead to flooding in days to come?
ALLEN: Right. That's what we're watching for now. A number of rivers across Florida are rising and are expected to flood, and they have been flooding, not just on the coast but also in central Florida. The St. Petersburg area, like you say, got so much rain. In one neighborhood, Melissa Anderson (ph) said she spent the day using towels, blankets, even T-shirts to stop the water from coming into her house.
MELISSA ANDERSON: Water was just coming into the bottom of the house faithfully. It just kept coming and coming and coming until we couldn't stop it anymore - the whole bottom floor. Yeah.
ALLEN: You know, like other people in the neighborhood, her house is not in a flood zone, and she doesn't have flood insurance.
INSKEEP: Greg, thanks so much.
ALLEN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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