(WFLA) – Rescue teams working in some of Florida’s hardest-hit areas are utilizing all the vehicles at their disposal to search for and assist residents in need of help after Hurricane Milton.

In Tampa, Melissa Marino with Nexstar’s WFLA observed several high-water rescue vehicles making trip after trip into a flooded section of the city to bring residents to safety.

“This is what we have seen all day, for hours now,” Marino said.

Officials with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said the vehicles are capable of overcoming “fallen trees and obstacles up to 3 feet high.” The vehicles, which also float, were “instrumental” in over 500 rescues in the wake of Hurricane Helene, the department added.

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High-water rescue vehicles are being used by Florida rescue teams in the aftermath of Milton. The same all-terrain vehicles assisted with rescue efforts during Hurricane Helene, officials say.(WFLA)

Rescue workers have also been utilizing rafts and airboats to assist with evacuations.

“We actually were on the airboat with the sheriff’s office, when they picked up a man and a woman and their dog and took them to safety,” Marino said. “And [the woman] said they were not in an evacuation zone. She thought the worst of their concerns would be power outages.”

The woman later told WFLA that she woke up at 1 a.m. on Thursday morning to find her generator “floating.”

In the same neighborhood, emergency responders also assisted over 135 residents of an assisted living facility get to safety, as well as a boy found clinging to a piece of fence.

NewsNation’s Brian Entin also toured the area on Thursday, riding alongside Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister on an airboat.

As of just before noon on Thursday, there were still “hundreds” of residents still inside their flooded homes in that one Tampa neighborhood, Marino estimated.

Other areas overwhelmed by flooding and storm surge include communities in St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Fort Myers and Clearwater, where rescue workers also utilized boats and high-water rescue vehicles to bring the stranded residents of a large apartment complex to safety.

Officials and emergency responders continued to survey damage on Thursday from Hurricane Milton, which made landfall Wednesday evening and brought devastating winds and dangerous storm surge and flooding. The hurricane had weakened to a Category 1 storm by mid-morning.