Residents in a boat survey neighborhood flood damage from Tropical Storm Fay on Friday in Debary, Fla. Tropical Storm Fay hobbled across Florida for a fifth day Friday as the state's death toll rose to five, while residents began plodding through muddy water to assess the flood damage to their homes.

Steinhatchee, Fla. ? As Tropical Storm Fay finally got on track Friday to leave Florida behind, flood-stricken homeowners got an encouraging sign: Muddy brown water lines began appearing on the sides of homes, a clue that floodwaters were receding.

The fickle storm that stuck around for five days and carved a dizzying path that included three separate landfalls dumped more than two feet of rain in some places. But to the relief of Floridians, it finally veered west on a path that should take it away from the state for good later this weekend.

By Friday night, the storm had crossed into the Gulf of Mexico, and it was poised for a likely fourth landfall over the Panhandle the next day.

Officials in Melbourne, one of the hardest-hit areas on the central Atlantic coast, carried boats down streets where just a day earlier 4 feet of water made roads look like rivers. Water several feet high remained in some neighborhoods, but most of the area had drained, leaving behind a half-inch layer of muck and mud.

“This is a welcome sight,” said Ron Salvatore, 69, who stood in his driveway Friday morning boiling coffee on a propane grill and surveyed a dry street. Salvatore and his wife Terry, 59, had been stuck in the house since Tuesday because water surrounded their home.

The storm’s death toll rose to six in Florida and nearly 30 overall since Fay first struck in the Caribbean. Florida officials said four people died in traffic accidents in the heavy rain and two others drowned in surf kicked up by the storm. Before the storm ever blew through the state, a man testing generators as a precaution also was killed.

Tens of thousands of people from Melbourne to Jacksonville to Gainesville were still without electricity, and residents of Florida’s storm-stricken Atlantic coast faced a weekend of cleanup after chest-high flooding. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said so far nearly 4,000 flood claims from Fay had been filed.

“The damage from Fay is a reminder that a tropical storm does not have to reach a hurricane level to be dangerous and cause significant damage,” said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who toured flooded communities this week.

On Friday, Crist asked the White House to elevate the disaster declaration President Bush issued Thursday to a major disaster declaration. Crist said the storm damaged 1,572 homes in Brevard County alone, dropping 25 inches of rain in Melbourne. County officials put preliminary damage estimates at $53 million.