In October 2024, Hurricane Milton struck Florida’s eastern coast with category three storms and other various impacts, leaving a sweeping path of chaos in its wake. The week of Milton’s strike brought catastrophic winds, rain, floods, lightning, and other dangerous effects. Even now, many Floridians are still suffering the outcomes of the horrific event. 

The fury of Milton’s effects has ravaged communities in Florida, dampening the state and its survival ability. The death toll of the storms has 23 confirmed deaths due to the sweeping tornadoes that devastated victims. The storm had also uprooted entire trees, tore apart roofs of homes, and caused significant flooding and erosion to lower-elevation neighborhoods as well as coastal regions. 

During the week of October 11, Milton caused over 3,400,000 homes & businesses to loose power. The state and its power has luckily been majorly restored, with Duke Energy Florida claiming to have restored over 99% of the outages, bringing the million-mark to a few thousand. 

Though many crews have been hard at work and still continue to try and resolve the issue of the hurricane aftermath, the effects have not stopped at outages. The winds and heavy flooding of Milton have caused over $2.5 billion in damages amongst farms and crops.

Wilton Simpson, the Florida Commissioner Of Agriculture, stated that “Hurricane Milton is impacting our farmers and threatening Florida’s position as a leading agricultural producer.” 

On top of the damages to the state’s agriculture, Florida’s infrastructure has also been severely harmed. Major highways were blocked by debris and many even collapsed, causing emergency and recovery services to be initiated across the state. However, due to the damages, emergency medics and other services were hindered due to the inability to access the main affected areas. Many shelters in the area were made to assist displaced residents whilst first responders tried their best to increase public safety and reduce the hazardous conditions.

While Florida is recovering at a much quicker pace than expected, Hurricane Milton serves as a devastating reminder of the challenges that forces of nature pose to any state. If you want to help support survivors of the storm, you could help donate to the RedCross Foundation to help make a difference. Whatever amount you donate helps to bring awareness and assistance to the many people affected by this tragedy.