in Florida, Hurricane Milton aggravates the damage already caused by the passage of Helene

Residents of Tampa Bay, on Florida’s west coast, had little relief. Barely two weeks after the destructive passage of Hurricane Helene, they were hit hard by Milton. The damage is considerable.

Hurricanes becoming more and more frequent and powerful. In Florida, millions of residents are returning home after having to evacuate in the wake of Hurricane Milton on the night of Wednesday October 9 to Thursday October 10. The damage is considerable, especially since it is added to the already very significant damage from Hélène, another hurricane which swept through the same region two weeks ago.

It’s not easy to slalom between the houses that are being cleared and piles of rubble that cover the sidewalks of the Gulfport neighborhood, on the edge of Tampa Bay, on the west coast of Florida. Alice and her friends take us in their golf cart, tracking not one, but two hurricanes in two weeks. “There are people who have had their roof torn off, their house damaged by trees or objects torn down by gusts, all because of Milton, she says. But the piles of furniture and rubble in front of the flooded houses, that’s Hélène.”

Hélène, at the end of September, hit Gulfport head on, preceded by a wave of almost six meters. Milton went to the other side of the bay, further south. It was its winds of nearly 200 km/h which wreaked havoc. “You see the marked houses there ?, points to Alice. They are all condemned, their inhabitants can no longer live there, they are forced to leave. In my life, I have never seen this !”

Treasure Island, on the Gulf of Mexico, is right in postcard Florida, except that now the palm trees lie on the ground and the white sand is covered with trash carried by hurricanes. And that omnipresent smell of rot emanates from the flooded buildings on the waterfront.

“It’s a mix between rotting algae, fish and the sun beating down on it, it creates this smell.”

Jesus, disaster resident of Gulfport

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He and his wife Karen show us what remains of their apartment, with direct access to the beach where Helene’s wave first submerged everything. Everything was invaded by a meter of mud which was just starting to go away when Milton arrived. “It’s hard because we were making progress getting over Helene, she sighs. The work was progressing and we lost a whole week because we had to stop and prepare for the arrival of a new hurricane. It cost us two weeks, even more because now there is even more damage.”

In front of Karen and Jesus’ residence, their furniture and all the contents of their apartment end up rotting on the side of the road while waiting for trucks to take them away. The other side of the postcard, now, are these immense landfills, sometimes as high as buildings, which Florida does not yet know how it will one day get rid of.