K-12 schools in 19 of Florida’s 67 counties will reopen Friday after classes were canceled as Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified and barreled toward the state earlier this week.

While all tropical and storm surge warnings for Milton were halted Thursday evening, schools in 34 counties opted to remain closed, the Florida Department of Education said.

The FLDOE says on its website that it will continue to work with schools “following natural disasters to ensure they have the resources needed to resume normal operations as quickly as possible.”

More than 2.5 million Florida homes and businesses have been left powerless, with those in the state’s center and west-central region hardest hit.

Hillsborough County is seeing nearly 500,000 electric customers in outages, while nearly 89 percent of customers in Highlands County are without power.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in a news conference Thursday that tens of thousands of linemen are working to restore power in the Sunshine State.

“With the full support of the state and the preparation of more than 50,000 line operators, utilities and telecommunications providers are working diligently to restore power and connectivity to these communities as quickly as possible,” he said.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Thursday that Milton’s impact was not as destructive as feared. Criswell will tour some of the tornado damage Friday.

“We didn’t have the extreme consequences of the worst-case scenario that we had prepared for, but there are still so many people affected by this,” she said at a news conference in Sarasota.

He said crews continue to search for others, but conditions make it difficult.

According to WFLA, that amount is more than five times the normal amount of rain for the month of October.