Thursday marked one year since Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Florida’s west coast, near Siesta Key. The National Weather Service says it was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, reaching Category 5 out in the ocean.

Many Florida residents were still dealing with damage from an earlier storm: Hurricane Helene, which had slammed into the Big Bend region less than two weeks before. That storm that spun northward into Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky, causing catastrophic flooding. Forty-two people died in Asheville, N.C.

Former Minnesotans in Florida

Minneapolis-native Heather Forness has lived in Florida since 2016 and has weathered several storms. Her neighborhood in Dunedin suffered mostly wind damage from Helene. MPR News calle

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