Hurricane Milton latest: ‘Everything in its path is gone’ – more deaths reported as daylight reveals Florida devastation | US News

The Francis family, from the UK, live five miles away from Tampa and evacuated to Orlando to avoid the worst of Hurricane Milton.

They told Sky News it was an easy decision to leave.

Dan Francis said: “You haven’t really got a choice.

“You have no power, you have no water, so you have to evacuate.”

Living in Florida, it is simply too hot to sleep when there’s no power, he added.

The family were still recovering from the recent Hurricane Helene when news of Milton came.

Donna Francis said they were relieved Milton was not as bad as predicted.

“They were predicting 10-12ft of storm surge,” she said. “We’d already had four to six feet two weeks before with Helene, which had written off our car.”

She explained that the way Hurricane Milton landed, there was in fact a reverse surge in the end – pulling the water backwards instead of pushing it forwards inland.

Dan added: “Everything that we had to rip out from the house {after Helene] we left outside the house… it’s going to be a mess when we go back, everything will have been blown to the road and used as missiles [by Milton]. 

“We don’t know what we’re going to come back to.”

The family have not been living in Florida for long. They were “lucky” in 2022 when Hurricane Ian hit, they said.

But Donna added: “Our luck is somebody else’s bad luck.

“We’ve seen the real Florida community and spirit come out.”

Dan said: “Our neighbours opposite lost everything – every one of their possessions.

“They’ve been there since 1976 and never had a drop of water in their house. It’s sad.”