Golden hash browns, gravy-smothered biscuits and crispy waffles with a hearty helping of maple syrup are among the classic Southern comfort foods. 

But when hurricanes tear through South-eastern towns, the hot meals and bold yellow signs of the local Waffle House provide another kind of comfort.

If a Waffle House stays open in town, even in a limited capacity, neighbors are reassured that the coming storm is unlikely to cause devastation. 

A closed location of the dependable diner chain has come to indicate impending disaster. The metric is known as the Waffle House Index.

AP

There are now 1,869,806 homes and businesses in Florida without power, according to utility tracker poweroutage.us. 

The vast majority of those outages are in Pinellas where 392,576 customers are out — that's 69 per cent of the area. 

Meanwhile in Hardee, 9,403 out of 9,640 customers have lost power, that's 97.54 per cent. 

 NASA astronaut and current International Space Station crew member Matthew Dominick recorded this timelapse while the ISS was flying over Hurricane Milton, about 9 hours before it made landfall in Florida.

Thanks for your question Clare. 

Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper made landfall near Wujal Wujal, in far north Queensland, as a category two cyclone in December last year. 

Hurricane Milton has just made landfall as a category three storm.

Jasper destroyed homes, damaged water infrastructure and roads. 

The Cairns Regional Council estimated that Jasper cost the local economy $390 million. 

In Florida, more than one million are without power and damage is expected to continue throughout the night. 

While we don't know the full extent of the damage from Milton yet, it's expected to cost billions. 

President Joe Biden has approved requests to declare a federal disaster in Florida, which unlocks a host of help efforts including individual financial aid, disaster supplies including food and water, and mobilising the National Guard.

Townsville local Tracey Perrett spoke to ABC NewsRadio earlier after managing to catch one of the last flights out of Orlando, Florida. 

The Orlando airport is now shut due to Hurricane Milton, with no flights in or out.

"As soon as we saw all of this traffic, and everyone being asked to evacuate if you could, we sort of thought wow, we could be stuck here, we went and asked our hotel but they were fully booked, so our main worry was we were going to stranded with no-where to go," she said.

DFAT hasn't made a statement on how many Australians are in Florida or attempting to evacuate, but we're trying to find out.

Pinellas County communications director Barbra Hernandez is at the Emergency Operations Centre in Largo, Florida. 

She says over 11,000 people have arrived at local shelters over the last two days. 

"We are just reeling from Hurricane Helene... a lot of people are really understanding the severity now," Ms Hernandez told News Channel. 

"We do worry for those individuals who decide that they want to ride out the storm... some people want to protect properties, some people are afraid of leaving their pets. 

"But we have made plenty of shelters available and [are] accepting people with special needs and pets."

It might not seem like the place to be in the middle of a Hurricane, but Disney World is reported to be one of the safest places to be during a storm like this, according to People. 

Disney World announced its parks would close today during the storm — the 12th closure in the park's 53-year history.

Nine of those other closures were also hurricane related.

Ron deSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, has said it is too late to leave for those remaining in the path of Hurricane Milton.

"I think at this point you've got to hunker down," he told Fox News.

Florida was only just recently hit by Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, which also caused significant damage and flooding.

These photos have just come in out of Sarasota.