BRANDON, Fla. — For those still in Brandon after Hurricane Milton, it was anything but a normal day despite how hard they tried.
Whether it was navigating the flooded roads or avoiding the trees ripped from their roots lying on the road, residents in this community are tip-toeing their way through the aftermath of what was an unprecedented event.
“I have never seen this area flood before. Never," Joanne Ferguson, who lives in a Brandon apartment complex, said.
Ferguson was just one of the many residents of her complex waking up to a pool of water sitting in the parking lot along with no power.
“It’s like a river out here. It’s ready to flood up," she said.
Many restaurants in the area are unable to open dealing with the same issues as Ferguson.
In the Brandon Mall, according to a 10 Tampa Bay source, the roof of an unoccupied shop was compromised causing the fire alarm system to activate.
Officials were cleaning out the mall Thursday afternoon with employees arriving Friday to assess the damage. The hope is it will be able to open sometime this weekend, but that is just a guess at this point.
This was also a massive wind event with plenty of cleanup necessary. To understand the intensity of the wind, a Cracker Barrel sign from Valrico was found three miles down the road on Brandon Boulevard in the parking lot of O'Toole's Irish Pub.
The Brandon community might have been spared the worst from Hurricane Milton, but the area is still hurting and will need time to recover.
