Boy, 14, Rescued From Floating Debris in Tampa

A 14-year-old boy was rescued from floating debris in Tampa on Thursday in what Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister says was one of more than 200 water rescues they carried out that day. The sheriff tells CNN that he was on the airboat with a deputy when the boy, clinging to a floating section of fence, flagged them down. "It was literally out of a castaway movie, him laying on top of a fence, waving us," Chronister tells WFLA. "Out of breath, gasping for air as we pulled him up." The sheriff's office shared video of the rescue.

The sheriff says the boy's mother evacuated him to a friend's home in a safer area as Hurricane Milton approached, but when he tried to walk home after the storm passed, he underestimated the depth of the water in a flooded area in north Tampa and couldn't swim well enough to make it through. "He was visibly shaken," Chronister says. "He hugged us, he was just so grateful that we took him to dry land." Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that at least 349 people—and 49 pets—had been rescued in ongoing efforts, the AP reports. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's office said in a news release that 135 elderly people, many of them in wheelchairs, were rescued from waist-deep water at an assisted living facility. (More Hurricane Milton stories.)