Floridians dug out from under Hurricane Milton’s path of destruction that killed at least 12 people, left millions without power or water and destroyed homes and businesses across the state. For all the misery in its wake, the storm had many people thankful it wasn’t worse. The Category 3 hurricane missed a direct hit on Tampa Bay, and the catastrophic storm surge was lower than predicted in many barrier islands. The 12 known deaths as of late Thursday included six people from tornadoes at a community in St. Lucie County, which accounted for the only known fatalities so far in the outbreak of twisters spawned by Milton. Four people were killed in Volusia County, including two who died when trees fell on their houses. And St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway attributed two deaths to the storm. “We are very, very saddened to see a tornado inflict such serious damage, including loss of life,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Thursday news conference in Fort Pierce. “These are things that are very, very tough to withstand. You don’t get a lot of warning on them, and they’re very, very devastating. Tragically, to lose five really is tough for this community.” Despite causing widespread damage, flooding and several deaths, Milton caused less destruction than had been feared on its approach, when it threatened to rank with such historic disasters as Hurricane Andrew or the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. While the storm gained Category 5 strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it weakened to Category 3 by the time it reached land about 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The diminished storm flooded coastal neighborhoods and generated deadly tornadoes but did not render large areas of the Gulf coast uninhabitable as had been feared. “We’re still assessing the damage from this storm,”  DeSantis said at a news conference in Sarasota, after touring Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall. “In some areas, in terms of what was being predicted, the worst-case scenarios did not come to pass, certainly in terms of the storm surge.” “While it was churning ferociously off the Yucatan peninsula, by the time it made it to the coast of Florida, those winds were a little bit tamer, still enough to do a lot of damage,” he said. “But in terms of our assessment and being able to bounce back, I feel confident we’ll be able to do that as a state.” Keith and his wife Angel, who declined to give their last name, check on their sailboat on Thursday after it ended up on the sidewalk near Sarasota Bay after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Sarasota Wednesday night. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel) On Siesta Key, the touristy island where the storm made landfall, residents began to return to their homes with a strong sense that it could have been worse. At Gilligan’s Island Bar located in the Village, the heart of Siesta Key’s tourist main strip, where plywood boards over windows carried the spray-painted message “Suck it Milton,” owner Scott Smith said he was grateful for how the area fared in the storm. “Everybody gutted their home a week ago,” he said. “We’re all still standing here … Are we going to reopen? Of course we will. Everybody will. Not today. I think we need time to clean up. We need personal time to get back on our feet. Everybody does.” Greg Buckley, who lives on the other side of the south bridge to Siesta Key, drove onto the island Thursday afternoon to check his boat and his friends’ houses. They avoided any major damage. Like others interviewed Thursday, he said the storm surge from last month’s Hurricane Helene was worse. But based on reports of Milton’s Category 5 strength, he and his wife evacuated to Jupiter, farther than they ever went to avoid a hurricane. “This one I think people took it more seriously and just everybody got out of dodge,” he said as streets in the area were still largely deserted. “You can never say it’s not as bad as you thought. They’re all bad. Could it have been worse? Absolutely. If this thing hadn’t downgraded to a Cat 3, Siesta Key wouldn’t even be there.” City of Miami Fire Chief Robert Hevia said as of Thursday evening their Florida Task Force 2 Urban Search and Rescue Team, which is based out of Miami, has made its way up the coast, beginning in Port Charlotte. Crews stopped in Englewood, Venice and South Venice, Manasota Key, Lido Key, Longboat Key and Siesta Key to conduct  initial sweeps of the areas to assess damage and identify anyone needing assistance or rescuing. As of Thursday evening, Hevia said, the search-and-rescue crews had not needed to make any life-saving rescues. “This event, though, we were expecting worse, and what we found was it appears that the structural damage wasn’t what we thought it would be — a Category 4, a Category 5,” Hevia said. “So the structural damage wasn’t there.” Hevia said they’ve seen some flooding in homes anywhere from 2 to 3 feet. “But I think what happened here … is that we just passed Helene, and these residents lived through Helene, and I think they really heeded the evacuation warning. So most of the areas that we went to were evacuated,” he said. “So you have less structural damage than we thought, flooding two to four feet in some areas … For us, that equals people not needing to be rescued, but certainly we need to still have due diligence.” The storm, though, may have caused $160-$180 billion in damage, largely from storm surge that flooded coastal neighborhoods between Tampa and Fort Myers, according to a preliminary estimate from the private weather forecasting firm AccuWeather. A man rides his bike on Thursday along tons of debris left by Hurricane Helene at Siesta Key in Sarasota hours after Hurricane Milton made landfall there Wednesday night. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel) At mid-afternoon Thursday, nearly 3.2 million customers in Florida remained without power, representing about 27% of the state. At Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric Co., which serve the hard-hit areas of the Gulf coast and central Florida, the total without power stood at more than 1.5 million. Florida Power & Light restored power to about 700,000 of the nearly 2 million customers that lost it by Thursday afternoon, the company’s chief executive officer, Armando Pimentel, said at a news conference in Wellington. He did not say how soon power will be restored for remaining customers. He said the company would release more information Friday. Restoration work was particularly challenging, he said, because saturated ground left by previous Hurricane Helene had left trees more susceptible to swaying or toppling and the high number of tornadoes, which can do more damage. The storm lost hurricane status Thursday afternoon, becoming a post-tropical cyclone, according to an update from the National Hurricane Center. Although its top wind speed of 75 mph reached the threshold for hurricane strength, the storm lost the characteristics of a structured tropical cyclone after it exited the state near Cape Canaveral before dawn on Thursday and headed farther into the Atlantic. The storm’s assault on Florida left flooded neighborhoods, stranded cars, shredded roofs and a still-unknown number of dead. Siesta Key residents walk through debris left by Hurricane Milton in Sarasota on Thursday. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel) Almost every window of a downtown Sarasota office building was smashed. A crane crashed through through the Tampa building that houses the Tampa Bay Times. The roof of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, was ripped off, with the stadium’s Wikipedia entry already edited to describe it as “formerly domed and now open-air.” In Hillsborough County, fire-rescue workers waded through thigh-high water to pull boats and inflatable rafts to rescue 107 people from an assisted-living facility. DeSantis said it’s too soon to say how many people have been killed in Hurricane Milton, as rescue workers went door-to-door in the hardest-hit areas. Although he said fatalities have been reported from at least one of the tornadoes, he said the state can’t yet issue a preliminary death toll. At a news conference Thursday morning, he said the hurricane caused widespread damage but turned out to be weaker than the most pessimistic assessments. The storm hit southwest Florida as a Category 3 storm with top winds of 120 mph, less than had been feared. “The storm was significant, but thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario,” DeSantis said. “The storm did weaken before landfall, and the storm surge initially reported has not been as significant overall.” Despite the departure of the hurricane, flooding were expected to worsen throughout Wednesday in areas near some rivers, which will swell from rainwater over the next couple of days. The aftermath of a hurricane can be particularly dangerous, with fatalities from downed power lines, flooding and unstable debris. Officials asked residents of hard-hit areas to stay inside and keep out of the way of rescue crews. “We are beginning to deploy out into the community, and we are doing all kinds of safety checks and search-and-rescue operations,” Sheriff Kurt Hoffman of Sarasota County, where the storm made landfall, said in an announcement on Facebook. “So what I’m asking from our citizens is to be patient. Don’t get out onto the roads, get in the way of first responders who are trying to do search-and-rescue, trying to clear roads, trying to make sure that downed power lines are out of the way so you can safely travel later today or tomorrow.” Hurricane Milton photos: Scenes of damage and rescue efforts across Florida St. Petersburg residents were without water, and major damage was done in the Tampa area, where flash flood warnings remained in effect well into Thursday. St. Petersburg residents could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service. St. Petersburg recorded over 16 inches of rain. Milton’s path zeroed in on the south side of Tampa Bay late Wednesday. A gust of 102 mph was recorded at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport by late Wednesday night, a 105-mph gust at Egmont Channel and a 98-mph gust at Middle Tampa Bay, the National Hurricane Center said. Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg, appeared badly damaged. The fabric that serves as the domed stadium’s roof was ripped to shreds by the fierce winds. Team officials were inspecting the stadium late Thursday.  Multiple cranes were also toppled in the storm, the weather service said. Joe Lindquist, 32, of St. Petersburg, walks over bricks near a fallen crane along 1st Avenue South near the Tampa Bay Times offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, as Hurricane Milton’s strong winds tore through the area. (Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP) One crane collapsed in downtown St. Petersburg during Milton’s furious winds, leaving a gaping hole in an office building that houses several business, including the Tampa Bay Times newspaper. The full extent of the damage won’t be clear for some time, especially in the barrier islands, but early images showed sea water rushing into bays and harbors from Charlotte to Fort Myers. The Ponce De Leon Hotel sign fell to the ground after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, Thursday in St Petersburg. (Lauren Peace/Tampa Bay Times) Heavy rain, powerful winds and a series of tornadoes struck Florida from the storm’s leading edge, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday.  DeSantis said 19 tornadoes were confirmed across the state, and on Thursday, Kevin Guthrie, the director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, said 120 tornado warnings were issued. He did not provide a number but said “numerous counties” reported damage and specifically mentioned damage in Palm Beach County and Port St. Lucie. A tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton ripped through the Windgate community in West Palm Beach late Wednesday afternoon, flipping cars, uprooting trees and damaging homes. (MD. Arifuzzaman courtesy) “Regardless of the winds from the storm directly, we’ve already seen probably more tornado watches than I’ve ever seen … No one remembers ever seeing this many tornado warnings that have been done,” DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday. The National Weather Service in Miami issued 55 warnings just in its region. About 125 homes were destroyed even before the hurricane made landfall, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, Guthrie said. The storm grew dramatically in size Wednesday afternoon. Milton’s tropical-force winds extend up to 255 miles from its center as of 11 p.m.  Wednesday. Tropical-force winds have speeds of 39-73 mph. The Sun Sentinel has made its coverage of Hurricane Milton free to all readers as a public service. Please consider supporting important breaking news such as this by subscribing to SunSentinel.com at a special rate.  Hurricane Milton spawns ‘tornadic supercell’ in South Florida as effects begin rolling into region Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 11 Florida counties ahead of landfall, with a combined population of about 5.9 million people, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. On Monday, Milton had intensified at an astonishing rate with barometric pressure plunging below 900 millibars, making it one of the top five most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record. A hurricane hunter aircraft reported early Tuesday evening the pressure in the eye of Milton had plunged yet again, indicating another explosive intensification. Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach said in a post on X that the only other hurricane on record in the Atlantic with a lower pressure this late in the year was Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Hurricane Milton: What’s open, closed, canceled and postponed in South Florida | UPDATED Staff writer Abigail Hasebroock contributed to this report, which was supplemented with information from the Associated Press.