Floridians evacuated for Hurricane Milton after wake-up call from devastating Helene WSOC TV [Video]

BRANDON, Fla. — (AP) — Florida residents who fled hundreds of miles to escape Hurricane Milton made slow trips home on crowded highways, weary from their long journeys and the cleanup work awaiting them but also grateful to be coming back alive.

“I love my house, but I’m not dying in it,” Fred Neuman said Friday while walking his dog outside a rest stop off Interstate 75 north of Tampa.

Neuman and his wife live in Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall Wednesday night as a powerful, Category 3 hurricane. Heeding local evacuation orders ahead of the storm, they drove nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers) to Destin on the Florida Panhandle. Neighbors told the couple the hurricane destroyed their carport and inflicted other damage, but Neuman shrugged, saying their insurance should cover it.

Nearby, Lee and Pamela Essenburm made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at a picnic table as cars pulling off …