Pinellas County officials have lifted mandatory evacuation orders and reopened the barrier islands after initial damage assessments from Hurricane Milton.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier this week that more power outages were expected than the state experienced with Hurricane Helene.

Thousands of Floridians are rebuilding their communities after Hurricane Milton made landfall as a deadly Category 3 storm this week and cut through the state, bringing destructive storm surge to parts of Florida’s western shore and deadly tornadoes to the east while killing at least 16 people.