Disaster relief crews from Ohio are down in Florida helping with the Hurricane Milton recovery effort Thursday.
"In Florida, people are overwhelmed with having to evacuate twice in weeks, and with the uncertainty of how to move forward," said Jim Mcintyre, Regional Communications Director for the American Red Cross of Northern Ohio.
He emphasized that Floridians are "just tired" right now, with Hurricane Helene dominating their attention since it hit two weeks ago and now Milton.
He said more than 20 of his volunteers are in Florida assisting at shelters, giving people a safe place to stay in these tumultuous times.
"These people are beleaguered and they're hurricane weary," he continued. "Many of these people in evacuation shelters who spent the night there last night don't even know if they have homes to go back to. So, it's a time of high anxiety for many people."
3News video chatted with one of the Red Cross volunteers — Norbert Berie from Painesville — who's working at a recovery shelter in Brooksville, Florida, about 50 miles north of Tampa. It's a place of refuge where people can get a cot, blankets and food.
Berie shared that the stories he's hearing are really tough to hear.
"It's everything from having their homes being flooded to trees falling on them. Just generally speaking, homes that are not habitable and that they're just looking for some place to recover," he said almost at a loss for words. "I mean, your heart goes out for these people. It's hard not to feel compassion for what they're going through."
Keith Miller, who lives in Parma, was hunkered down with his parents in their Sarasota home as Milton tore through, leaving millions without power in the state.
"It was like a firework show through the whole neighborhood and beyond, just transformers popping," he described. "It was blue and green and just lighting up the sky. They were popping everywhere all over the place."
He also described being in the eye of the hurricane.
"That was pretty wild to say the least," Miller said. "You always hear about being in the eye of the hurricane, you can look up and see the stars. Well, they were right. You can. And it was pretty amazing."
After the eye, came the other side of Milton, which he said left his parent's home with $15,000 to $30,000 in damage.
"That backside of that eye wall was just unbelievably relentless," he said. "That just kind of like finished everybody off. I think that was what really took all the fences down around here, took all the awnings off the house, started peeling back the shingles on the roof."
FirstEnergy has also sent it's workers down to help with recovery, telling 3News on Thursday that more than 100 Ohio line workers are assisting with power restoration in the wake of Milton.