Heavy rain will continue as the storm weakens, after strong winds left nearly 3 million people without power.
Hurricane Milton has left a trail of destruction in Florida as it spawned tornadoes and brought torrential rains and furious winds that destroyed homes and left millions of people in the US state without power.
While the National Hurricane Center said Thursday that the storm, which made landfall on the state's western coast hours earlier, had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane, it was still barreling through Florida with 90 mph winds. (93mph).
Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. (00:30 GMT) on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h (121 mph) near Siesta Key, Florida.
The storm is expected to maintain hurricane strength as it crosses the Florida peninsula and emerges into the Atlantic on Thursday, forecasters said, even though it is losing strength.
At least 19 tornadoes hit the southern part of Florida, hundreds of miles from the center of the storm, as it approached land.
Some 2.85 million people in Florida were without power as of 2:36 a.m. (0636 GMT), according to Poweroutage.us, which tracks supplies, with the state's west coast hardest hit.
The number of victims is still unclear. St Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told local media that several people died at a senior living community called Spanish Lakes Country Club, located near the southern Florida city of Fort Pierce.
The sheriff could not confirm the number of dead and injured, but said emergency services were still searching for damaged homes.
Reporting from Orlando, Florida, Al Jazeera's Heidi Zhou-Castro said there were people who chose to ride out the storm and shelter in place.
“We won't know their fate until dawn, when the storm passes,” he said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned at a news conference Wednesday night that the hurricane had reached the state's coast and that safe evacuation was no longer possible.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attributed an above-average Atlantic hurricane season to the La Niña weather pattern and warmer-than-average water temperatures. The total number of hurricanes has already exceeded last year's total.
While Milton is expected to cause the most damage in western Florida, the neighboring state of Georgia, which is recovering from last month's Hurricane Helene, is also bracing for impact.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp urged residents in the state's coastal counties to prepare for downed trees, scattered power outages and possible flooding near the ocean.
US President Joe Biden promised support to affected regions. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he also condemned falsehoods spread about the federal emergency response to Milton and Helene as “un-American.”
“Over the past few weeks, there has been reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of misinformation and outright lies about what is happening. “It is undermining trust in the people of Florida,” Biden said. “It's detrimental to those who need the help most.”
Biden said claims were made that property was being seized, a claim that is “simply not true.” Republican candidate Donald Trump, however, has repeated that claim during his election campaign as he seeks a second term as president.
