Hurricane Milton live: Florida attempts to recover as 1.6m still without power after ‘one in a lifetime’ destruction of storm

Joseph Malinkowski became a ‘cult hero’ overnight for his defiant stand in the face of Hurricane Milton. Mike Bedigan and Kelly Rissman delve into his sprawling criminal history that rocked the boat and social media:

Chris Christie has slammed Donald Trump for politicizing Hurricane Milton as Florida begins recovery efforts from the “once in a lifetime” storm.

“He is a selfish child,” Christie told The New York Times opinion journalist Frank Bruni.

“And he doesn’t care that these people in North Carolina are suffering the way they are, if caring costs him one bit of perceived political advantage.”

Trump has been peddling conspiracies about the federal government’s response to both Hurricanes Helene and Milton, including a debunked claim that money from FEMA is being diverted away from hurricane survivors towards illegal migrants.

Images spread online supposedly showing Disney World in Florida underwater as a result of Hurricane Milton appear to be fake and have been generated using artificial intelligence.

Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida, announced they would close their theme parks amid rare measures ahead of the dangerous Hurricane Milton directly hitting the area, bringing with it strong winds, heavy rainfall and hazardous storm surge.

As Milton made landfall on Wednesday, all three Orlando-based parks, including Universal Orlando and SeaWorld alongside Disney, ground to a halt and shut down operations that would have usually welcomed tens of thousands of tourists.

Three days after Milton smashed into Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, 1.6 million homes are still in the dark.

As of around 11am ET Saturday morning, 1.58 million customers were without power in the Sunshine State, according to Poweroutage.us.

In hard-hit Pinellas County, more than half were still in the midst of a power outage (373,000 out of 567,000 customers).

A British holidaymaker has described his “holiday from hell” after he was stuck in Florida with his brother and seven young children as Hurricane Milton made landfall in the US.

Jordan Sly was due to fly back to London on Wednesday with his three children, his brother Zak, and Zak’s four children. But as Hurricane Milton approached and Florida braced for its second devastating storm in as many weeks, their flight home was cancelled.

The seven children, aged between four months and 11 years old, were put to bed by Mr Sly and his brother in their Davenport holiday home. But when the storm hit in the early hours of the morning, chaos followed.

The Independent’s Alex Croft has more:

Florida Transportation Department says Emergency Shoulder Use is no longer in effect.