VALRICO, Florida — As the car pulled up, the few volunteers of Creekside Church of Christ moved quickly in the burning Florida sun, pulling water, hamburger meat and cookies out of the trunk and into the shade of three tents.

They laid out snacks, a pot of spaghetti and prepped the meat for their grill for their neighbors now using the parking lot as a temporary home.

A volunteer works the grill in front of Creekside Church. Members of the church worked together throughout the day to provide food and drinks for anyone who might need it.

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Three days before, Hurricane Milton hit the town of Valrico, Lithia and other communities on the west coast of Florida, bringing with it damaging winds and widespread power outages.

After the immediate threat of Milton subsided, another emerged: Major flooding from a nearby waterway turned neighborhoods into rivers, forcing dozens to evacuate their homes. Some reported water reaching up to their chest and needing to evacuate by kayak.

That’s why members of Creekside, just a mile away from one disastrous scene of flooding, gathered Saturday to provide food and drinks to their neighbors, like Shauna Thomas, whose homes are still inundated with water.

“We want to help out,” church elder Robert Clouse said simply of the effort. “I’m concerned about these people now.”

“I don’t think we were prepared for this,” Robert Clouse said of both Milton’s destruction and the subsequent flooding in town. Despite not having power, the church will hold its service this Sunday. Clouse said the service should be “memorable.”

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Thomas and some of her neighbors have been sleeping in their cars in the church parking lot since she managed to escape her home earlier this week.

“It came in so fast and so hard that there was nothing that any of us could do. We already knew it was coming, so we got the basics that we could out. But it was just too fast,” she said.

She grabbed a suitcase of clothes and her dog, Bailey, as flood waters quickly took over her Rose Street home.

Thomas’ low-lying street is just one of several in Hillsborough County flooded by the Alafia River. The waterway crested at 24.34 feet on Friday — reaching a major flood stage, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Other residents NPR spoke to said the area has never flooded this bad before. Hillsborough County emergency crews rescued more than 500 residents and 100 pets in the flooding aftermath.

Flood waters inundated several areas of Hillsborough County, including Paul Sanders Park in Brandon, Fla.

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By Saturday afternoon, some water had receded, but emergency crews and residents still relied on kayaks and boats just to enter the flood zones. NOAA forecasts flooding from the Alafia River to continue in the major or moderate flood stage through early next week.

Thomas is not confident about what remains of her house she’s lived in for two years.

“There’s no home,” she said, tearing up. “The guy that lives behind me lives in a house that’s between nine and 12 feet high, and he had two feet of water in his house. Mine’s lower than that. Mine only sits three feet above ground.”

She gave effusive thanks to the church for providing much-needed resources.

“They brought us food. They brought water. They brought us everything that they possibly could,” Thomas said.

She found that others in the community have shown up, too. One business loaned her a grill to use and another gave her space to park her car on higher ground when Milton first hit.

“It’s a strong community, and we’ll manage to get through one way or another. Now it’s just a matter of praying,” she said. “That’s all we can do.”

In a flooded Valrico neighborhood, a man waits outside of a home after paddling two others, who entered through the window, up to it.

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Florida will give out millions of gallons of free gas after the Sunshine State was walloped by Hurricane Milton, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Saturday.

The fuel was already being distributed at three sites, said the governor, who added more spots would be opening up, including at the Port of Tampa later Saturday, Politico reported.

The news comes after locals have been lining up for fuel and DeSantis has faced criticism over shortages after Florida was hit by two storms in as many weeks — the first, Hurricane Helene, making landfall on Sept. 26.

Residents in need could get up to 10 free gallons of fuel from the designated distribution centers that have already been set up in Plant City, Bradenton and St. Petersburg, De Santis said. Additional sites were slated for Tampa, Sarasota and a third potentially in Pinellas County, the news site reported.

Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said the handout was meant for those “financially struggling” and said people who could afford gas should continue to go to gas stations, as it would be a faster option.

Almost one third of Florida’s gas stations were out of fuel by Friday afternoon, the outlet reported, citing fuel tracking site GasBuddy.

State troopers were being used to help escort tanker trucks in order to distribute gas and dozens of distribution sites have been established in 14 counties to help get meals, water, ice and tarps out to locals.

Guthrie said he expected the feds to approve several programs meant to help locals with new housing or with the rehab of their current housing.

The governor told the media at a fuel depot set up in Plant City: “We just want people to be able to get what they need.”

Category 5 Milton hit the Gulf Coast of the state Wednesday and was accompanied by dozens tornadoes, torrential downpours and high-speed winds — all of which have contributed to power outages for more than 4 million people and at least 17 deaths.

More than 1.5 million people still haven’t gotten power back as of noon Saturday, according to state reports.

PLANT CITY — Three fuel distribution sites have been set up by the state in the wake of Hurricane Milton in an effort to alleviate problems getting fuel, as many gas stations are still without power or simply out of fuel.

And Gov. Ron DeSantis promised that more will be opened as needed.

DeSantis spoke of the fuel program during a 30-minute news conference at Plant City Stadium, one of the three distribution sites currently open. One is also open in Bradenton and another in St. Petersburg.

“We’re in the process of doing more,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to do another one closer to the heart of Tampa in Hillsborough County. We’re going to do another one in a different part of Pinellas County and we’re going to do at least one in Sarasota County and perhaps some more depending on the demand that we have.”

DeSantis said the loss of power is one of the major issues.

“When you have power out at gas stations, you can’t pump fuel,” he said. “When you have ports that are interrupted, they don’t get the shipments in as much. So we have a lot of fuel that we brought into Florida to be able to help and get people through it as we get back, and the private sector resolves the issue. So we stockpiled a lot of fuel. We’ve activated a lot of our fuel contracts and we want to be able to give people an option.

“I see a lot of people waiting in line at the gas stations that do have power, and these are really long lines,” he said. “And when the port of Tampa is open, you’re going to see the fuel flowing. But in the meantime, we want to give people another option.”

Joe Graham and his wife, Lecinda, of Plant City were among the people taking advantage of the option. They waited in line all morning to get their 10 gallons as cars were lined up more than a mile from the stadium. At least one car ran out of gas inside the stadium before it could reach the pump.

Joe Graham runs a group home in Tampa, and getting fuel is just part of his efforts.

“We have no water, we have not lights,” he said. “It’s really hard trying to get staff to come in. A lot of them are flooded out. We‘re doing this on a daily basis, so always trying to find out what the next deal is going to be. Right now, we’re trying to get this little gas because there’s no gas in the gas station.”

Initially, 250,000 gallons of gasoline and 250,000 gallons of diesel was on site, but more fuel will arrive as needed, according to Bill Smith of World Kinect Services. The Miami-based corporation is contracted with the Florida Division of Emergency Management to provide fuel. He said the site is expected to be open for days between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The fuel is free, but each person is limited to 10 gallons.

“These public fuel sites, although we have done fuel support in the past, we’ve never done it to this scale, and that is on top of the amount of fuel that we provided directly to service stations,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis said the state put 400,000 gallons of diesel into the supply chain and 500,000 gallons of gasoline. He said there were 31 sites for emergency fuel distribution for first responders, health care workers and other critical personal.

The state, DeSantis said, still has 1.8 million gallons of diesel and more a million gallons of gasoline that will be used at the fuel depots until the fuel situation is resolved.

“We have Florida ports that are actively receiving shipments like Port Tampa Bay,” DeSantis said. “Additional vessels are en route, they are filling up the trucks and we’re bringing them to where they need to be.”

One terminal filled 531 trucks Friday, and the Florida Highway Patrol is escorting the tankers from the ports to the respective service stations.

“If you see a gas station is out, most of that is, they don’t have power,” DeSantis said. “Now, they may also need to get their fuel shipment as well. But if they don’t have power to be able to run the pumps, then it’s an academic issue.”

DeSantis said generators can be deployed to gas stations if they’re going to be without power for an extended period.

Hurricane Milton’s hit: How will it affect our insurance premiums in Florida?

“A lot of these gas stations, quite frankly, are supposed to have generators,” he said. “Very few of them have used them that I’ve seen, especially in the areas that were the hardest hit.”

DeSantis said he is optimistic that the stations that do not have power will be “getting power in relatively short order in the coming days.” Until then, DeSantis said the state sites will help fill the void.

“You’re going to have more of these state-run sites that are going to be available,” he said. “We understand particularly to get people through the weekend. We want to be able to do, use the fuel reserves that we provided and get those into people’s tanks.”

Kevin Guthrie, the executive director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said more fuel has been coming into the state. As of noon Saturday, four different ports were offloading 37.3 million gallons of fuel that will be pumped into the distribution lines and immediately be available.

(This story was changed to include more photos.)