In the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, Florida authorities are now fighting to stop an insurance scam targeting storm victims, often the elderly, according to CNN Correspondent Brian Todd.

Citing information from Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, Todd said the scam targeted elderly residents of the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village in Fort Pierce – the area where numerous people died.

State teams are now on the ground in those neighborhoods trying to spot and stop these cons, he added.

St. Lucie, one of the hardest-hit locations on Florida’s east coast, saw multiple tornadoes within a 90-minute window and about 900 calls for help in the same period, said county Administrator George Landry on Thursday.

Landry added that all three police departments in the county, as well as multiple fire districts, 911 dispatchers and emergency response teams, were working together to respond to distress calls as Hurricane Milton ravaged the area.

At least six deaths have been reported from St. Lucie County.

As Hurricane Milton tore through Florida Wednesday night, it created what authorities called fatal “supercharged” tornadoes – with at least nine tornadoes tearing through communities in one county overnight, including three in less than 25 minutes.

He added that this was unusual for places as far south as Florida – where the high-moisture environment means most tornadoes just look like “a wall of rain coming at you” instead of the classic twister shape. But the tornadoes created by Milton were different, and “look like a tornado you would see in Oklahoma,” he said.

Oklahoma is among a number of tornado-prone states, along with Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. They see large, destructive tornadoes each year thanks to their atmospheric conditions and geographic location.

“You have to imagine with the environment that exists right now, you have very warm waters – which is like the battery that we use to charge our phones, that’s the energy that these storms need to really produce and get strong,” he said, pointing to how quickly Milton strengthened into a Category 5 status in the lead-up to landfall.

After the departure of Hurricane Milton, the extent of the devastation and damage across Florida is being laid bare.

The storm made landfall Wednesday evening near Siesta Key, Florida, as a dangerous Category 3 hurricane before ripping through the state as a Category 1 storm — destroying homes, roads, power lines, trees and buildings.

At least 15 people have died in Milton’s path of destruction – which brought destructive storm surge to parts of Florida’s western shore and deadly tornadoes to its east – and the state is anticipating more casualties, Gov. Ron DeSantis has said.

The storm represents a more than 1-in-1000 year rainfall event in some areas, such as St. Petersburg. CNN drone footage showed a construction crane toppling from a high rise and crashing into a building in a scene residents described as a “train wreck.”

Here is more about the storm’s impact and how Florida is picking up the pieces.

Rescue operations: Nearly 1,000 people have been rescued so far, according to Gov. DeSantis, with thousands of personnel deployed across the state. In one dramatic rescue, a news crew saved a single mother and her 4 children who were trapped in floodwaters for 7 hours.

Reopened ports: The Coast Guard has reopened some ports following Hurricane Milton, including Key West and Port Miami in Florida, as well as several ports in Georgia and South Carolina. Numerous ports in Florida, including St. Petersburg and Fort Myers, remain closed. Here is what’s open and what’s closed.

Power outages: More than 2.6 million customers across the state are still without power as of Thursday evening — down from 3.2 million in the early afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

Boil water notice in St. Petersburg: City crews are working to repair 30 water line breaks caused by fallen trees. Drinking water has been restored, but the city remains under a boil water notice until Monday. Residents should boil water before consuming it — for at least one minute, according to the CDC — but it remains safe for hand washing and showering.

Orange County lake advisory: In Orange County, authorities urged residents to refrain from swimming in lakes and rivers because of high water levels, potential for contamination, displaced wildlife and submerged structures.

Separate relief for separate storms: Floridians will need to apply for separate hurricane relief for each storm they were impacted by — even if they were hit by both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, FEMA’s administrator said.

A 66-year-old woman living in Fort Pierce has been identified as a victim of Hurricane Milton, her daughter Brandi Smith told CNN on Thursday.

Deborah Kennedy, originally from New York, moved to Florida in March and was living in Spanish Lakes.

Smith said she received a call from a Florida official who told her Kennedy didn’t survive the storm.

In a tribute shared with CNN, Smith honored Kennedy as “an amazing mother and grandmother.”

“My mom will be missed incredibly, forever. This will leave a deep, deep hole in the hearts of us kids and her grandchildren,” Smith said. “I will be lost without her for the rest of my life.”

When Kennedy’s husband of 42 years passed away a few years ago, she got a double burial plot in New York so they could be buried next to each other.

“I want everybody to know what an amazing person she was, and she deserves to come and be with her husband,” Smith told CNN.

Residents of Florida’s badly hit St. Lucie County on Thursday recalled the terrifying moments that Hurricane Milton affected the area, including when tornadoes struck hours ahead of the storm’s landfall.

“I’ve lived in Florida since 1989. Never, never have I experienced damage or the amount of tornadoes that came through this area,” Susan Carlos, a resident of Sunnier Palms Park and Campground told CNN’s Paul Murphy and John General. “And it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever lived through.”

At least nine tornadoes hit the county on Wednesday afternoon and early evening, according to a CNN analysis of National Weather Service warnings.

Officials say Sunnier Palms was one of the hardest hit areas. Parts of the county have significant structural damage. Dangerous winds dropped power lines, uprooted trees, overturned cars and reduced homes to piles of rubble.

Keith Harry, another resident there, recalled seeing transformers blowing up during the storm.

“Our motor home started to tip up on two wheels and going up,” he said, adding that the disturbance “was over so fast.”

“I couldn’t believe the damage,” Harry told CNN.

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Residents left in ruins after tornadoes rip through neighborhood

00:52 - Source: CNN

More than 24 hours after Milton first made landfall, the hardest-hit communities are working to conduct rescue and relief operations as well as assess damage, with CNN reporters on the ground describing it as “carnage.”

CNN Correspondent Brian Todd in Fort Pierce, where at least one tornado and high winds wreaked havoc, pointed to an 18-wheeler truck that was picked up and slammed on its side by the storm.

Elsewhere in St. Lucie County, at least six deaths have been recorded by authorities. The storm “lifted up modular homes and tossed it like it was garbage, like it was nothing,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told CNN earlier Thursday.

On the other side of the Florida peninsula, in Siesta Key where Milton made landfall from the Gulf of Mexico, homes are surrounded by debris, said CNN Correspondent Randi Kaye – gesturing to a front yard scattered with suitcases, mattresses, a television, and other personal belongings like photographs.

“Talking to these people, they are frustrated, they are angry, they are in tears,” Kaye said, noting the impact storms Milton and Helene have had on the region. “They are tired of watching the weather after this one-two punch. They don’t know when they’re going to get hit, if they’re going to be spared … they feel like they need a fortress in order to survive here.”

More than 2.6 million utility customers across Florida are still without power as of around 11:00 p.m. Thursday evening, according to PowerOutage.us — down from more than 3.3 million people Thursday morning.

The highest proportion of customers without power is in Highlands County in central Florida, where more than 88% of customers are in the dark, and along the state’s Gulf Coast. More than 70% of households and businesses are without power in Hillsborough County, which is home to Tampa.

Hardee, Manatee, and Sarasota counties are also experiencing considerable outages, according to PowerOutage.us.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said many Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees “are rattled” by the misinformation spreading about the federal response, including by former President Donald Trump, as they work to help people affected by two major hurricanes.

“When I was at the FEMA headquarters today, I saw extraordinary discipline and teamwork and coordination. We’re talking about public servants who have been working around the clock,” Buttigieg told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

He added that federal, state and local officials are working together to bring assets back online – such as to restoring radars, towers and beacons to allow flights to continue. About half of the airports affected are open or working to reopen; they hope to have the Tampa airport open by tomorrow, he said.

More than 100 crews are also conducting inspections across Florida to reopen roads, bridges and interstate highways, he said.

And while there’s more work to be done before Port Tampa Bay can fully be reopened, “hopefully that will be relatively soon … because that supplies a lot of the fuel, a lot of the energy that people really across the whole state of Florida count on,” he said.

The Coast Guard said on Thursday night that Port Tampa had been reopened but with restrictions on vessel movements. Several ports across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina had been reopened – but a number remain closed in Florida, including St. Petersburg and Fort Myers.

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Coast Guard saves man clinging to cooler 30 miles off Florida coast as Milton approached

00:39 - Source: CNN

Ahead of Milton’s arrival this week, the US Coast Guard twice helped a Florida boater, who was found clinging to a cooler in the Gulf waters the second time he was rescued, video shows.

On Monday around noon, the captain of a fishing vessel named Capt. Dave, reported to Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg watchstanders that he and a crew member were disabled approximately 20 miles off John’s Pass near St. Petersburg, Florida, along the Gulf Coast, according to a USCG news release.

A Coast Guard rescue boat crew and a rescue helicopter crew arrived to help the two people, who were airlifted back to Air Station Clearwater in good condition, the release said.

“The vessel was left adrift and salvage arrangements were to be made,” the release states.

On Wednesday afternoon, the boat’s owner reported to the Coast Guard that the captain went out to make repairs to the boat at around 3 a.m. and had not checked in.

“Watchstanders were able to make radio contact with the captain who reported the rudder was fouled with a line and became disabled during his transit back to port,” according to the Coast Guard’s release.

“The weather at the time was 6-8 foot seas, and approximately 30 mph winds but quickly deteriorating as (Milton) approached,” the release states.

The Coast Guard instructed the captain to wear a life jacket and stay with the vessel’s emergency position.

“Watchstanders lost communications at approximately 6:45 p.m, Wednesday evening,” the release states.

A Coast Guard Air Station Miami helicopter was launched at 5:30 a.m. ET Thursday. The captain was recovered at 1:30 p.m. about 30 miles off Longboat Key, clinging to a cooler and wearing a life vest. He was flown to Tampa General Hospital.

More than 500 people were rescued from an apartment complex in a non-evacuation zone in Clearwater overnight after Milton brought major flooding to the city, its mayor told CNN.

Some of those rescued were in chest-deep and neck-deep floodwaters, according to Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector.

First responders were already getting 911 calls after the hurricane made landfall, but the winds were too dangerous for them to respond, the mayor said. “They got there as soon as they possibly could to protect their own safety,” he told CNN.

Rector said the city “did a really good job” of getting people out of evacuation areas but stressed the flooded apartment complex was in an area that had not been ordered to evacuate.

“These people weren’t expecting this, but the rain came down so hard, so fast that it completely flooded this apartment complex,” he said.

The next challenge will be finding shelter for the residents who are displaced from the complex, the mayor said.

“We feel like we’ve had one major hurricane in two separate events. If you put it all together, it’s really, really tough for our entire community,” Rector said.

Floridians will need to apply for separate hurricane relief for each storm they were impacted by — even if they were hit by both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said Thursday.

Due to the state being consecutively hit by multiple storms, Criswell explained the importance of residents specifying the dates and damages they’ve experienced.

Criswell cautioned residents to be as precise as possible in detailing the damage from each storm.

Criswell also said that FEMA personnel are on the ground to help residents when applying for aid.