Florida residents sing in flooded streets after Hurricane Milton world news

“We are now in a period where loss of life is preventable,” DeSantis said. You have to make the right decisions and know that there are dangers.

As of Friday night, the number of customers still without power in Florida fell to 1.9 million, according to poweroutages.us. The 260,000 residents of St. Petersburg have been told to boil water before drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth until at least Monday.

Also on Friday, the owner of a large phosphate mine revealed that pollution spread into Tampa Bay during the hurricane.

The company Mosaic said in a statement that the storm's heavy rains overwhelmed a collection system at its Riverview facility, forcing excess water out of a storm drain into the bay. The agency said the leak was fixed on Thursday.

Mosaic said the spill likely exceeded the minimum reporting standard of 17,500 gallons, although it did not provide a number for what the total volume may have been.

Calls and emails to Mosaic seeking additional information about Riverview and the company's other Florida mines went unanswered, as did a voicemail to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The state has 25 piles containing more than 1 billion tons of phosphogypsum, a solid waste byproduct of the radium-containing phosphate fertilizer mining industry, which produces radon gas. Both radium and radon are radioactive and can cause cancer. Phosphogypsum can contain toxic heavy metals and other carcinogens such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel.

Florida's vital tourism industry is starting to return to normal with the reopening of Walt Disney World and other theme parks. The state's busiest airport, in Orlando, resumed full operations on Friday.

Just two weeks after devastating Hurricane Helen, Milton flooded the barrier island, ripping off the roof of the Tampa Bay Rays' baseball stadium and collapsing a construction crane.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office crews were helping to rescue people, including a 92-year-old woman, who was trapped in rising waters along the Alafia River on Friday. The river is 25 miles (40 km) long and flows from eastern Hillsborough County, east of Tampa, to Tampa Bay.

In Pinellas County, deputies used high-flow vehicles to transport people to and from their homes in the flooded Palm Harbor neighborhood, where water continued to rise.

Ashley Cabrera left with her 18- and 11-year-old children and their three dogs, Yor, Po and Molly. It's the first time they've been able to leave the neighborhood since Milton's injury and they head to a hotel in Orlando.

“I'm really grateful that we can get out now and go somewhere on the weekend where we can get a hot meal and gas up,” Cabrera said. I thought we would be able to get out when the storm passed. These streets have never been flooded like this in all the years I've lived here.

Animals were also being saved. Cindy Evers helped rescue a large pig trapped in high tide at a shopping mall in Lithia, east of Tampa. He had already rescued a donkey and several goats after the storm.

“It’s high and dry where I am and I have a barn and 9 acres,” Evers said, adding that he will soon begin working to find the animals’ owners.

In the Gulf Coast city of Venice, Milton left several feet of sand in several beachfront condominiums, where one unit was nearly full. A swimming pool was filled with sand, only the handrails stuck out.

Some warnings were heeded and lessons learned. When 8 feet of seawater flooded Punta Gorda during Hurricane Helen last month, 121 people had to be rescued, Mayor Lynn Matthews said. Milton caused at least 1.5m of flooding, but rescuers only had to save three people.

Then people heard the order to evacuate, Matthews said.

Matt Joyner of the Florida Citrus Mutual Trade Group said Friday that both Milton and Hurricane Helen hit Polk County and other orange-growing regions with piles of fruit on the ground and trees uprooted.

The Milton oranges arrived early in the growing season, so it is still too early to assess the full extent of the damage.

Florida has already seen a decline in orange production for years, with the industry still recovering from last year's hurricanes as well as an ongoing battle against a deadly green disease. Milton could be a knockout for some producers, Joyce said.

In the coastal city of Clearwater, Kelvin Glenn said it took less than an hour for the water inside his apartment to rise to waist-deep Thursday morning. She and seven children, ages 3 to 16, were trapped in dirty, brown floodwaters for nearly three hours before an upstairs neighbor opened his home to them.