SARASOTA, Fla. — The sun was shining again Thursday in the city that had been directly in the path of Hurricane Milton, and when survivors emerged from their hiding places, many were pleasantly surprised to find the damage wasn’t as bad as they had feared.
Most restaurants and grocery stores in Sarasota were shuttered, a few wrecked cars and trucks were strewn about like toys, some traffic lights were working while others were completely gone and dozens of palm trees were snapped like twigs or reduced to splinters.
Famous cultural destinations like the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and the Sarasota Opera House remained closed, and so were many of the roads leading into this city of 55,000 — not that there was much traffic.
Despite being on the water and susceptible to flooding, downtown Sarasota and the rest of town appeared to have mostly escaped the storm surges that inundated cities to the south, like Venice, South Venice, Englewood and Manasota Key.
“There’s a lot of cleanup that needs to be done, but I expected worse,” said 59-year-old Michelle Simmons, who rode out the storm Wednesday in her third-floor Sarasota apartment.
Standing on Bayfront Drive with her daughter, Simmons said after being cooped up in the apartment overnight, they were able to come out for some “fresh air.”
“I expected this to be underwater, and it’s not,” Simmons said. “I’m surprised we’re able to walk around here.”
Milton roared ashore Wednesday evening on nearby Siesta Key and then marched overnight across the midsection of Florida, killing at least a dozen people, cutting off power to more than 3 million customers, spawning dozens of tornados and delivering drenching rainstorms that caused widespread flooding.
It was bad, but it could have been a lot worse, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters Thursday.
“The storm was significant, but thankfully, this was not the worst-case scenario,” DeSantis said. “The storm did weaken before landfall and the storm surge, as initially reported, has not been as significant overall as what was observed for Hurricane Helene.”
Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that it appears the county was hit with anywhere from 7 to 8 feet of storm surge, but it was mostly on the barrier islands and some areas further inland.
Still, Milton was scary. And 53-year-old Maurice Williams said he was glad he heeded the advice of local officials and evacuated from Sarasota before the storm swept through town.
Upon returning to his house, Williams said there had been some minor flooding and a tree in the front yard had been knocked down.
“We kind of got lucky,” Williams said. “It hit us hard. But at the end of the day, we still got lucky, because we’ve seen what has happened in the last storm, and this very well could have happened in this storm or worse.”
Williams said Hurricane Helene, which had blown through the area 13 days earlier and wreaked deadly havoc from Florida all the way to North Carolina, opened the eyes of many Sarasotans who might have ignored the evacuation warnings.
“I think they did a great job of warning people and putting fear in people to get out of here, because you never know,” Williams said of local officials, who had been warning residents for days that their city had a bull’s-eye on it.
Tim Roxby, a 67-year-old British expat who has lived in Florida for four years, said he didn’t believe what he called the “media hype” and stayed put in his Sarasota home rather than evacuate.
“The Weather Channel just went on and on and on all day long,” Roxby said, with warnings about 20- to 30-foot surges. “And turns out it was 7 or 8 feet.”
Still, Roxby said he was relieved to wake up and find his house in one piece. And to celebrate their good fortune, he and his wife went for a stroll along Sarasota Bay.
“This is Florida,” Roxby said. “Come out in the sun.”
Not everybody in the city was as lucky. Two out of the dozen or so boats docked at Bayfront Marina, including a $4 million yacht, were capsized by the storm.
Yacht broker Steve Stevens shook his head as he surveyed the damage.
“This is very sad to see something like this. I mean, it’s really heartbreaking,” Stephens said. “But I’m actually surprised there’s not more damage.”
Elena Ianakiev, who lost one of her cafes to the wrath of Helene, also rode out this storm at her Sarasota home and feared the worst when she ventured downtown to see how her other eatery, the Green Zebra Cafe, fared.
“That’s what we were ready for,” she said. “First the one gone, then the other one would be gone. We’re so close to the bay.”
But it was fine, although Ianakiev’s eatery was one of the few businesses open.
“We said, ‘Oh, gosh, we’re spared,’” she said. “We are so lucky and relieved.”
Matt Lavietes reported from Sarasota and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.