Florida residents return, clean up after Hurricane Milton

In Florida, a major clean-up operation is underway as residents return after the US state was hit by the deadly Hurricane Milton.

Transcript

00:00The big return is in full swing now. Floridians from the Tampa Bay area who had evacuated just

00:05a few days ago are rushing back, eager to learn what Hurricane Milton did to their homes and properties.

00:13And this is what most of them find. Toppled trees, downed power lines, partially destroyed buildings,

00:19plenty of homes, entire neighborhoods flooded, others impassable for now, with homes crushed

00:25by trees that Hurricane Milton's Category 3 winds catapulted into their houses. East Tampa,

00:32old neighborhoods from the 50s and 60s, hard-working regular people live here,

00:37the so-called average Joes. This is Nolan Monroe and his two sons.

00:43I ain't never seen nothing this bad. This bad? Bad, yes, bad. Worst I've ever seen in 40 years.

00:50Nolan sends us down the street to the bottom of his neighborhood. Houses are close to the

00:55river there. They had it even worse, he adds, as we leave. We meet Heather. She just arrived back

01:00at her house after evacuating a couple of days before Milton made landfall. She invites us into

01:05her home. It suffered significant flood damage, not from Milton, but from the storm that hit here

01:11two weeks earlier, Hurricane Helene. And everything is a goner, yeah? Yes. You're saying? Yes. And my coverage

01:19was not good for any of my contents in the house that had to be thrown out. A lot of stuff has

01:23already been thrown out. Yeah, of course, yes, yes. Across from her, a property owned by an elderly couple,

01:29a total loss, Heather thinks. But local, state or federal officials, nor any insurance representatives

01:34have shown up yet to confirm that. We leave for the East Tampa River Grove neighborhood. It got

01:41hit badly by Hurricane Milton. A similar picture, crushed houses and cars. The whole neighborhood is

01:46without power since Wednesday. Everybody here is waiting for anybody to show up and help, at least

01:51with restoring power as soon as possible. I have my insulin in here. I'm trying to keep it cool.

01:59I'm praying and I'm hopeful. I'm hoping that they will come because this is going to become

02:06extremely difficult to maneuver with my health issues. As we leave here, the first utilities

02:15truck of the local power company arrives in the neighborhood. However, Antoine Richards with the

02:20Institute for Diversity and Inclusion and Emergency Management tells us that even when it

02:25comes to emergency response after disaster strikes, not all neighborhoods are equal. In the immediate

02:31aftermath of Milton, like how we're meeting today, everybody is trying to get assistance. Everybody's

02:36trees are down. Power, you know, people are working. But give it a few more days and then you'll start

02:41to see these neighborhoods have power and these neighborhoods don't. People are still hungry here.

02:47People aren't hungry there. With at least more than 1.5 million people in Florida still without

02:52power, most face equal challenges. What unites all of them is their hope

02:56for help and assistance by authorities delivered quickly and dispersed equally.