As powerful Hurricane Milton draws closer to Florida, many local counties are opening emergency shelters today.

Nearly two million Floridians are without power after Hurricane Milton hit the Sunshine State late Wednesday less than two weeks since Hurricane Helene 's devastation. Over 1.901 million outages have been reported in Florida as of 11 p.m. ET Wednesday, according to the USA TODAY power outage tracker.

The storm did not trigger the catastrophic surge of seawater that was feared, although Governor Ron DeSantis cautioned the damage was still significant.