The cruel Florida dog owner who left his pooch tied to a fence in flood waters on the side of a highway as Hurricane Milton barrelled down on the Sunshine State last week has been caught.

Giovanny Aldama Garcia was arrested Monday and charged with aggravated animal cruelty, a third-degree felony.

Garcia admitted to leaving the canine, a white Bull Terrier on Interstate 75 as he raced towards Georgia ahead of the storm.

The 23-year-old told officials he left his dog “Jumbo” because he “couldn’t find anyone to pick the dog up,” according to Hillsborough County State Attorney Suzy Lopez.

Lopez blasted Garcia’s actions and asked for politicians to help change the current laws in place.

“In Hillsborough County, we take animal cruelty very seriously. This defendant is charged with a felony and could face up to five years in prison for his actions,” Lopez said. “Quite frankly, I don’t think that is enough. Hopefully, lawmakers take a look at this case and discuss changing the law to allow for harsher penalties for people who abandon their animals during a state of emergency.”

A driver flagged down Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Orlando Morales who “diligently searched” for the dog.

Morales, drove a quarter-mile south and used a portable speaker calling for the dog.

When the canine was eventually found, the trembling dog growled and barked at Morales.

“I don’t blame you,” the trooper according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Morales parked his patrol vehicle and trudged across a soggy field next to Interstate 75, rescuing the terrified animal as the water had risen past the dog’s legs.

The pooch was brought to a vet, where he was examined for injuries and received a clean bill of health.

The Leon County Humane Society stepped in to get the Bull Terrier to a foster home in Tallahassee and named him Trooper due to “how much he’s been through and to honor those who saved him” from the catastrophic storm.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out the “unacceptable” actions by Garcia as he evacuated the storm’s eye.

“When this poor dog was left out there,” DeSantis said, “We said … we’re going to nail you when we find out who did it. And that’s exactly what they’re doing here in Hillsborough County with State Attorney Lopez.”

“You don’t just tie up a dog and have them out there for a storm. Totally unacceptable, and we’re going to hold you accountable,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday.

Garcia faces up to five years in prison for the felony and will not get the dog returned to him, Lopez said.

He was released from jail Tuesday on a $2,500 cash bond.

Six days after the storm, the first responders from South Florida Task Force Two returned home to Miami.

The group of 110 firefighters from several departments, including Miami Fire-Rescue, deployed to the west coast as Hurricane Milton was making landfall. They headed to Sarasota and Clearwater, the hardest-hit areas, and jumped right into the fray.

“Our need is absolutely necessary, our members are trained in swift water rescue, in land-based search and rescue operations, they hit the ground running, these are true professionals, they’re ready to encounter and mitigate hazards that they are presented with in an austere environment,” said Chris Diaz, the task force leader. “Our members absolutely assisted members of the community in the Clearwater area, Sarasota area, Siesta Key, we were generally focused on search and rescue.”

The Miami team was in the thick of the most damages areas. Diaz said it can get emotional to comfort people who are going through their worst days.

“They’re humans, I mean they’re true professionals, they’re competent, they deliver outstanding work, however they’re humans, they know they’re going out to someone’s home that they may have lost,” Diaz said. “It’s great to be home, but I will say that we don’t know what’s brewing on the horizon and what you see behind me is 110 members that just got back from the west coast and they’re preparing all of our resources to be out the door within three hours if we get activated again.”

Hopefully, that won’t happen any time soon.

Diaz said without a doubt, lives were saved by the fact that most people in the evacuation zones heeded the warnings and left. He also praised FEMA and the state of Florida for prepositioning assets so as soon as the storm passed, the search and rescue operations could begin.

Hurricane Milton lashed Florida’s Gulf Coast with flooding rain and winds of 120 miles per hour that left homes — and, in some cases, full neighborhoods — drenched, muddied and dilapidated. At least 24 deaths have been blamed on the storm, officials confirmed to CBS News.

Satellite images illustrate the scope of the damage in coastal communities along the western part of the Florida peninsula, near the Sarasota barrier island of Siesta Key where Milton made landfall Wednesday, Oct. 9, as a powerful Category 3 hurricane. 

The images, captured one day after the storm struck the region, show beaches in Siesta Key and Anna Maria Island, another barrier island just north of Milton’s landfall site, darkened and damaged, each riddled with murky sand that appears to push inland toward the surrounding streets and buildings. They appear to the left side of satellite images taken of the same areas before the latest hurricane. 

CBS News correspondent Nicole Valdes flew over Siesta Key with the Florida National Guard on Friday, observing vast devastation from above as loose metal and other debris littered the landscape. This area was among the Gulf Coast communities struggling in the wake of back-to-back hurricanes, as Hurricane Helene rammed into the region less than two weeks before Milton arrived.

Anna Maria Island’s beaches remained closed Tuesday, according to the region’s severe weather information center, as did government offices like the island’s chamber of commerce building. In Siesta Key, a boil water notice was still in place and Fisherman’s Haven and Sanderling Road, at the lower edge of the barrier island, did not yet have water restored, Sarasota County officials said.

Another satellite image shows destruction in Clearwater, near Tampa and St. Petersburg, where first responders used high-water vehicles and boats to rescue families who were trapped inside of a local apartment complex. 

“We lost everything, I lost everything, there was about 10 feet of water in my apartment right, because I tried to go back in and grab some stuff, and it rising, rising, it was up to my chest,” one man who lives in the complex told CBS News.

Some homes in the nearby Tampa area were almost completely submerged underwater after the storm, while the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office conducted dozens of rescues and evacuated more than 135 residents from an assisted living facility.

In Cortez, a fishing village also located along the coast in Sarasota County that was damaged by both Helene and Milton, a satellite shows debris covering roads and the docks that line the waterfront. Both hurricanes battered the historic village, tearing down trees and power lines and reducing buildings to piles of rubble. 

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune published additional photos of homes and docks in Cortez that completely collapsed. Milton also ripped off a portion the roof of a condominium in the area, with satellite images taken over that section of the village showing debris scattered on the ground and spread across the area around it.

In Manasota Key, on the western coast of Florida just south of Sarasota, Milton’s storm surge sent massive boulders and at least one boat up the beaches and hurled them into waterfront buildings. Heaps of sand left in the hurricane’s wake were piled 6 feet tall in some places, reported CBS News’ Tom Hanson from the island. Hanson described “a devastating scene” and said the sand resembled “snow drift from a blizzard” that coated both the insides and outsides of homes.

The beach was diminished from Milton, Hanson reported, and Gulf waters were much closer to shore than they had been before the storm.

After Milton knocked out power to some 3 million people in Florida, officials said they expected electricity to be fully restored across the state by Tuesday night. Meanwhile President Biden has authorized an additional $612 million in federal aid to help areas in Florida and North Carolina affected by Milton and Helene.