TAMPA, Fla.—After more than a week of watching, worrying, and speculating, Floridians came face to face with Hurricane Milton.

There was damage in Milton’s wake, as well as tragedies. At least 10 people lost their lives because of the storm.

For most, however, it was a hurricane that wasn’t as bad as expected.

As the storm inched across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida gaining strength, residents were told to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Many along the state’s Gulf Coast were still sorting through debris from Hurricane Helene, two weeks earlier.

Milton appeared merciless. The National Hurricane Center predicted that it would make landfall as a borderline Category 4 storm, pummeling Tampa Bay before trekking across the heavily populated Interstate 4 corridor and remaining a strong Category 1 hurricane as it entered the Atlantic.

People of the Tampa Bay region—near the middle of the state on the western coastline—were told to expect an unprecedented 10 feet to 15 feet of storm surge. A wall of water more than 10 feet high also was expected to the immediate north and south.

Officials declared mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor told her constituents in a televised address that if they stayed in those evacuation zones, they would die.

But Milton landed south of Tampa, and that changed everything.

It was still a major hurricane, and its outer bands spun off scores of tornadoes. One twister in St. Lucie County, on the state’s east coast, killed four.

Milton threw as much as 8 feet to 10 feet of storm surge into Sarasota County. It dumped as much as 18 inches of rain in some areas, causing flash flooding. Its winds caused significant infrastructure damage, including the destruction of the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team.

On the morning after Milton hit, more than 3.2 million people were without power. By the early afternoon, 106 people had been rescued, and more than 80,000 people were taking refuge in nearly 300 shelters spread across the state.

“What we know for sure is we avoided that worst-case scenario that we were planning for,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN on the morning of Oct. 10.

Spared From the Worst

Prior to Milton’s arrival, reports of the storm’s intensity had Marcos Gleffe of Englewood second-guessing his decision to ride it out at home. But as the storm peeled away from Florida’s east coast and churned into the Atlantic Ocean early on Oct. 10, he found himself breathing a sigh of relief.

“I had screen damage, which was expected,“ Gleffe, 41, told The Epoch Times. ”My daughter’s playground tipped over. My neighbor’s playground tipped over. Other than that, except for us not having power, I think we got spared the worst of it.”

While his wife and daughter fled to eastern Tennessee, he stayed behind to ensure that their elderly neighbors would have a helping hand if things took a turn for the worse.

“I’m happy I was able to be here, just in case something happened, but I’m also happy that ... I’m not needed for anything,” Gleffe said. “My neighbors are all fine.”

Englewood lies about 12 miles south of Venice, where Milton rolled ashore. The unincorporated community is split between northwestern Charlotte County and southwestern Sarasota County. Gleffe lives on the Charlotte County side, just a couple of miles from the Gulf.

“We were at the bottom of the eye when it hit the Sarasota and Tampa areas, where they got the worst of it,” Gleffe said.

Now, he and his family are trying to figure out their next steps.

His wife and daughter will be traveling home “at some point,” according to Gleffe. But with no time frame for when their power will be restored, he’s not sure when that will happen.

Officially, hurricane season ends on Nov. 30. So he knows that Milton might not be the last storm to threaten the Sunshine State this year.

“If there’s another one that’s probably coming up, [I may] just tell my wife, ‘Yeah, just stay in Gatlinburg,’” Gleffe said.

Milton’s Eye On Venice

Just before making landfall on the evening of Oct. 9, Milton took a sharp turn to the east near Siesta Key. That meant the effects on Tampa Bay would be less than predicted by the National Hurricane Center.

Residents of Venice were suddenly told that they may get 10 feet to 15 feet of storm surge as the back of Milton’s eye came ashore. That kind of surge puts ocean water in living rooms and sometimes covers homes completely.

The center of Milton’s eye crawled across Lakewood Ranch and Venice at about 9 p.m. EDT on Oct. 9. In the calm of the eye, screaming wind gusts were replaced with a gentle breeze and a calm that some called “eerie” or “surreal.”

Then the back of the storm’s eye—which carries the brunt of the hurricane’s surge—made its way ashore. After hours of howling winds, battering rain, and fretful uncertainty, the rising sun allowed Venice residents to see clear skies and scattered debris.

Area evacuees with medical needs took cover at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. On-duty staff bunkered with their families to ride out the worst of the storm. When they were told it was safe to leave, some gathered outside, overjoyed by early reports that flooding appeared far less extensive than anticipated.

Much of Venice experienced 5 feet to 7 feet of surge instead of 10 feet to 15 feet.

Residents near Venice Beach who had stayed put were out early cleaning up debris. Beachside condominiums in the area had flooded ground floors and damage from wind.

Hurricane-force winds battered the roofs of homes in Nokomis, ripping off sections of wood support beams and leaving them in piles like toothpicks.

The northern eyewall of Hurricane Ian had pounded that community just two years before. Some residents were still recovering and rebuilding from the previous storm.

Helene Debris Stays Put

Tampa Bay suffered less harsh effects than predicted, but the region still endured a night of extreme wind and heavy rain.

Many homeowners near Tampa’s waterways hadn’t been concerned about the wind. They were worried about Milton’s forecasted storm surge.

Helene had surrounded Jason Burgess’s home in the South Tampa neighborhood with stormwater and brought 8 inches of flooding inside. But during Milton, his home was spared.

Burgess had also worried about the mountains of debris piled up on curbs in his community after Helene. Would Milton simply spread it again, he had wondered.

State and local agencies had carried away as much as possible before Milton’s arrival. However, many narrow streets still had mountains of debris left uncollected. Authorities warned that the assortments of glass, hardwood, metal, and plastic could become deadly shrapnel in Milton’s powerful winds.

As the sun rose on the morning after Milton’s rampage, streets were cluttered with downed tree limbs, pieces of rooftops, signs, and awnings. But the piled-up debris largely had stayed in place.

“I did expect to have some of that stuff blowing across our yard, and maybe ... hitting our windows or something,” Burgess said.

More inland, staffers on the hurricane “ride-out team” at ZooTampa at Lowry Park were out assessing the damage, too.

The 63-acre nonprofit “sustained damage due to the high winds associated with the storm and is currently without power,” the  zoo’s communications director, Sandra Morrison, told The Epoch Times.

But ahead of the storm, zookeepers had coaxed large animals into their night houses and moved smaller animals and birds inside, too. Special care was taken to guide a flighty flamboyance of flamingos to a safe area in the 67-year-old park.

“Most importantly,” Morrison said after the storm, “our team members and all 1,000-plus animals entrusted in our care are safe.”

‘Wasn’t as Bad as We Were Expecting’

In Lakeland, about 35 miles east of Tampa, damaged street lights and traffic signals littered State Highway 17, forcing motorists to negotiate their way through intersections.

Sean Ryder spent part of the morning after Milton collecting aluminum shards dislodged from his home in Highland Village Mobile Home Park.

He was awake when the storm tore off the roof between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m.

“It sounded like it was just being ripped, just ripped right off,” Ryder said.

Daylight revealed the damage.

The roof had been peeled away and planted partially on his neighbor’s home.

As part of the community’s maintenance crew, he got right to work on a cleanup project with no clear end in sight.

In downtown Lakeland, Scott and Gina Sweezey stopped at Molly McHugh’s Irish Pub, one of the only businesses open.

“It wasn’t as bad as we were expecting,” Scott Sweezey said.

Their Lakeland home never lost power, he said.

The Sweezeys expected a quick return to normal for their Central Florida community.

“It’s mostly trees down [but] nothing structural [in terms of damages],” he said. “It looks like all the buildings did well.”

State Response

Damage assessments, power restorations, and search-and-rescue missions continued throughout the day on Oct. 10.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said those efforts weren’t expected to deplete hurricane response resources.

“It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be a lot of damage,” DeSantis said the morning after the storm. “It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be a lot we’re going to have to contend with. But, just in terms of what we were prepped for, I think we will probably have an abundance of resources [after handling the aftermath of Milton].”

The Associated Press, Stacy Robinson, and Nanette Holt contributed to this report.