Hurricane Milton Live Updates: Florida Tallies the Dead and Storm’s Damage
Two days ago, Thomas Kerschen bid goodbye to Sienna, the gray, 33-foot sailboat he calls home. The vessel had survived several storms in the three years that Mr. Kerschen, 32, has lived on the waters off the coast of Gulfport, Fla.
Mr. Kerschen had lost a houseboat before, in Key West during Hurricane Irma in 2017, when a huge wall of storm surge crushed it, and he did not think Sienna stood a chance against Milton, especially after so many boats had been lost to storm surge two weeks ago during Hurricane Helene.
He bought 30-foot lines to give Sienna plenty of room to move in the storm surge, but his hopes were not high.
“I had never actually said goodbye to my boat before,” he said. Then he evacuated to ride out the storm elsewhere.
On Thursday morning, while it was still dark, Mr. Kerschen and a friend drove back to Gulfport. His friend, Richard Garber, needed to check on his bungalow. Mr. Kerschen needed to check on Sienna.
He described making his way through trees littering the waterfront. Law enforcement officers tried to stop him, he said. He told them he just needed to see if his boat was still there.
Eventually, he saw it. Sienna had made it, one of only about six boats still visible from the waterfront.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said, as he raked leaves and tree detritus from the street in front of Mr. Garber’s bungalow.
The bungalow had some damage to its foundation, said Mr. Garber, 54. He had moved to Gulfport — at the southern tip of Pinellas County, which juts into the bay west of Tampa — from Maryland in June. In a matter of months, he has become something of a Florida storm veteran.
“I love the people here,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of good friends here already.”
But the storms had been difficult.
“It’s been two and a half years of this, over and over and over again,” Mr. Kerschen said.
He estimated that the number of boats anchored in the bay had gone from about 100 before Helene to about 20 before Milton. Now, perhaps, just the six he spotted from the waterfront would remain.
Early Thursday morning, people began arriving at the waterfront, which had been bruised by Milton’s strong eyewall winds. It was, however, one of the few places that appeared to have decent cellphone reception.
Katherine Kelley walked her golden retriever, Louie, to survey the damage.
“I haven’t seen any broken glass,” she said. “I haven’t seen any roof damage.”
During the storm, she stayed in her home on higher ground, outside a mandatory evacuation zone, with shutters, plywood and roof reinforcements. Ms. Kelley, who moved to Florida from Ohio two years ago, said that when her neighbors left before the storm, she worried whether she was right to stay.
Seeing that neither the storm surge nor the winds had been as destructive as she had feared, Ms. Kelley was reassured. “I guess we made the right decision,” she said.
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