emergency services in the United States have rescued thousands of people from flooded parts of Florida after Hurricane Milton crashed through the state yesterday killing at least 16 people take a look at these pictures this is a coast guard air crew rescuing a man clinging to a water cooler to float in the Gulf of Mexico around 30 m off the Florida coast an incredible rescue there and a very lucky Escape for that individual uh more than 2 and a half million homes and businesses remain without power and authorities are warning residents not to return home because
of the Hazardous conditions a rescue at dawn for hundreds who fled for safety to neighbors upstairs now there is relief for a community inundated by flood water and fear did you lose your shoes yes all my shoes were inside of there um in the block next door a return for those in the eye of the storm we watched this fall open our window cuz we heard it start cracking Zayn tells me there were no evacuation orders for these homes instead they watched the waters surge helpless stuff from my dead grandmother all gone Zayn and flatmate
Dania couldn't afford Florida's Rising storm Insurance prices now they say they've lost everything but at least they didn't pay with their lives kind of started Panic we started getting like flippers and stuff figured out how we were going to swim out of here as the flood waters arrived they were trapped inside I was like worse comes to worse we have to leave this house we can't stay in the house but at the same time we can't see anything there's a canal right behind us here there's Gators in that water so there's a big fence hole
in the fence so I was like first thing I think like we're going to be in by alligators they told me when I was in elementary middle school that Florida would be underwater in 10 to 15 years and I think I think that's what's happening just Mother Nature fighting back fighting back in what way well just the Earth the way it is right now and how much we like pollute this community is Battle hardened when it comes to storms but look at this they've had two Hans here back to back within a fortnite and so
people here are asking the question how long they can keep going like this with the risk getting worse by the year scientists believe Hur an are being supercharged by warming oceans with the latest two in Florida hurtling in from a hotter than usual Gulf of Mexico and communities here continue to face the Fallout now they return to survey the damage and many will wonder how many times they can keep trying to come home Tom bman BBC News clear waterer Florida and let's just move a little way along the Florida Gulf Coast from Clear Water where
Tom was reporting from to speak to the mayor of Treasure Island that's Tyler Payne thank you very much for joining us on BBC News and I wonder have people who left there in advance of Milton started to return how bad are things looking yeah um I just drove around the island just before this interview and there are still not very many people here um we were certainly spared um we fared much better than we anticip ated with Milton um which was just a double whammy after the significant impacts of colen I'm standing in front of
my um parents house my childhood home where I was raised where my dad was raised and during hen they had water up to the door the handle on the door gear so everything inside their home um was destroyed and it does seem like everyone really heated the evacuation orders much more seriously this time and um left even further so I think that's why we're seeing not a lot of people back on the island but yeah and what level of state and federal help are you hearing about are you actually getting at the moment um the
the assistance at all levels of government has been really great so far um we the biggest project that we have is the debris cleanup because we had um like I said homes throughout our city we have about 6,000 residents where a barrier island in the Tampa Bay area and about 75% of our hones had that two to three feet of water in them after Hurricane clean so everybody's belongings all their personal items and their Furnitures out by the curb and was there during Milton which was very nerve-wracking because that could have caused some significant damage
but um it fortunately didn't it went a little bit to the south of us um but that debris collection is going to be our biggest hurdle forward so a relatively lucky escape from Milton from being in the eye of the storm because you are really on the front line of the Gulf of Mexico there there's a real question then going forward isn't there for the community of Treasure Island about how it can keep going through Cycles like this and and trying to recover what are your thoughts on that right you know as as single level
home like this I think is just not really going to be a thing of the future any longer um for a long time we've had a lot of residents that have invested a lot of money into renovating these ground level structures and as we're seeing more storms like this um there are federal guidelines for um that FEMA puts in place when your home is damaged like this or when you're doing a big renovation if you're spending more than 50% of the value of your structure you have to elevate your home um and have no living
space on the first floor so I think a storm like this is um going to cause a lot of a lot of those single level homes to be elevated um or knocked down and and elevated to a safer structure which that's really the best way forward for Island communities like ours is to to build stronger infrastructure and stronger structures that can withstand storms like this really interesting to hear uh your thoughts on that thank you very much for your time good luck with the recovery efforts uh that's Tyler Payne the mayor of Treasure Island on
the FL Florida Gul Coast
