By JIM TURNER
News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE – For the third consecutive week, Florida’s primary focus involved the unnerving anticipation of a major hurricane and the exhausting — and expensive — recovery from heavy rains and battering winds.

Hurricane Milton crashed into Siesta Key with 120 mph winds on Wednesday, punching into Sarasota County and barreling across the state before sweeping into the Atlantic Ocean.
Milton arrived two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage along the Gulf Coast. Helene made landfall in Taylor County and caused historic flooding throughout portions of the South.
“When you’re a Floridian, you kind of just like know, like these are things that can happen and you roll with it, and you just kind of deal with it,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said after viewing damages in the Sarasota area on Thursday. “I’ve seen a lot of grit. I’ve seen a lot of determination. And I’m very confident that this area is going to bounce back, very, very quickly.”

MILTON’S WAKE

With millions of people throughout the state heeding calls to evacuate, state officials estimated that up to 100,000 people were in designated shelters as Milton swept across central Florida.
More than 3.4 utility customers were without power when dawn broke Thursday morning. With at least 40,000 utility workers spread out across the state, the number dropped to 2.28 million Friday afternoon as major airports, seaports and even major theme parks started to reopen after quick damage assessments.
At least 14 deaths have been tied to Milton, including 5 from a tornado that ripped through a retirement community in Fort Pierce. The tornado was one of at least 47 that reportedly touched down as part of the storm, which also caused widespread flooding on both coasts.
A day after Milton made landfall, Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie remained concerned that the storm’s heavy rains could result in flooding along the Hillsborough River, Little Wekiva River and St. Johns River.
President Joe Biden said this week that the federal government is offering state and local officials “everything they need” in response to both Milton and Helene.
“To the people of Florida and all the impacted states, we’ve got your back. We’ve got your back, and Kamala and I will be there for as long as it takes to rescue, recover and rebuild,” he said Wednesday, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.
Biden is scheduled to visit Florida on Sunday to survey damage.

MOMS FOR THE WIN

A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday backed a chapter of the group Moms for Liberty in a constitutional challenge to Brevard County School Board policies that placed restrictions on speakers at board meetings.
In overturning a decision by U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton, the panel decided school district policies aimed at “abusive,” “obscene” and “personally directed” speech violated the First Amendment.
The opinion came after school boards in various parts of Florida and the country have become battlegrounds during the past few years about contentious issues such as restricting or eliminating access to certain school-library books.
The Brevard County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group, and individual plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in 2021 alleging that school-board policies chilled speech at meetings. The case stemmed from incidents that occurred from Jan. 19, 2021, to Oct. 26, 2021.

The majority opinion said the government “has relatively broad power to restrict speech” in what are known as limited public forums, such as school board meetings. But it said that “power is not unlimited.”
“Speech restrictions must still be reasonable, viewpoint-neutral, and clear enough to give speakers notice of what speech is permissible,” wrote Judge Britt Grant. “The board’s policies for public participation at board meetings did not live up to those standards.”

DEADLINE HOLDS

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Wednesday rejected a request to reopen voter registration for the November election because of Hurricane Milton.
Floridians faced a Monday deadline to register to vote in the election, and the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Florida NAACP argued that Milton evacuations and other factors, including lingering problems from last month’s Hurricane Helene, prevented people from registering.

The groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday contending the registration period should be reopened for 10 days.
But, siding with the state, Hinkle said the “problem is not something that is going to be solved by the court.”
“The solution is not a constitutional reworking of the deadline that the Florida Legislature set,” Hinkle said.
The judge also said people could have registered to vote online Monday before the deadline.
“If they had evacuated, they still could have registered while evacuating if they had a cell phone,” Hinkle said.
In addition, he said a “substantial state interest” exists in not extending the registration deadline for what he said could be the “most closely watched election ever.”
Hinkle cited additional pressures on elections supervisors, such as trying to find poll workers and enough polling places after the hurricanes.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Catastrophic Hurricane Milton, the third storm to make landfall this season in Florida, slammed into Sarasota County on Wednesday and caused widespread damage, dozens of tornadoes and more than a dozen deaths before reaching the Atlantic Ocean along the Space Coast.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Over the last few weeks there’s been reckless and irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies of what’s going on. It’s undermining confidence in the people in Florida and the incredible rescue and recovery work that has been undertaken. … Quite frankly, these lies are un-American.” — President Joe Biden, referring to rumors about his administration’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.