More than 130 people — many of whom were elderly — had to be rescued after the assisted-living facility where they live flooded.
Residents at the facility in Hillsborough County recalled to CNN the harrowing experience as floodwaters from the heavy rains brought on by Hurricane Milton entered the building after the storm made landfall on Wednesday night.
“I was in bed obviously, and then I didn’t realize it was flooded at first, but then I heard a crash,” one resident named Theresa told the outlet. “A refrigerator and a microwave oven on top of it [toppled and] it just blew out.”
“[The water] was coming up in my bed, to the edge of my bed,” Theresa continued. “It was terrible, and the water was so cold.”
An employee of the facility told CNN that it took a “pretty good while” until rescue crews arrived to help.
“I got woken up [at] about 2 a.m. The building, it started to flood,” the employee said. “So, I had to get up. I had to react, had to get dressed and basically make sure all the residents were okay.”
A drone image shows a flooded street due to Hurricane Milton in Siesta Key, Florida, on October 10, 2024.
MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty
She added that several furniture items in the assisted-living facility began floating due to the floodwaters. “The chairs were just floating, the couches were floating, everything was floating,” she told CNN.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said the residents “were literally living in 4 to 5 feet of water” as they waited to be rescued by deputies. He noted that there were a number of individuals who could not “walk.”
The facility also housed additional assisted-living facility members who had been evacuated from Manatee County ahead of the storm, according to the employee. They were then loaded into a school bus and moved to an elementary school.
The employee told CNN she thought the facility would be safe because it was not in an evacuation zone. While they did not need to worry about the storm surge, heavy rains ended up causing flooding in areas officials had not expected.
In an update on Friday, Oct. 11, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that since Hurricane Milton made landfall, approximately “1,400 individuals and over 140 animals” were rescued by Urban Search and Rescue Teams and the Florida National Guard.
There have also been 17 people confirmed dead as a result of the storm, as of Saturday, Oct. 12, according to NBC News.
