Highways were clogged, gas stations ran out of fuel, and stores were emptied of essential supplies as Hurricane Milton approached Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday, leaving residents with only a few hours to evacuate.
Described as a “catastrophic” storm, Milton was on course to hit one of the state’s most densely populated regions.
With millions of Floridians either ordered or urged to evacuate, the window for action was rapidly closing.
According to a USA Today report, the National Hurricane Center’s 11 a.m. ET update revealed that the Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 145 mph, was expected to cross the Gulf of Mexico and make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday. “Historic, catastrophic, life-threatening – all those words summarize the situation,” USA Today quoted Austen Flannery, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Tampa, as saying.
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The report added that tornadic supercells—dangerous, rotating thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes—were already sweeping across the Florida peninsula. Over 12 million people were under tornado warnings, with the National Weather Service in Miami confirming “up to 4 visually confirmed tornadoes today,” and additional unofficial reports of more.
Hurricane Milton was expected to maintain its hurricane status as it moved across Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.
This storm arrives less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend coast as a Category 4 storm, leaving much of the state damaged and vulnerable before wreaking havoc in the Carolinas.
On Tuesday night, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with leaders in Clearwater and Pinellas County, the White House said on Wednesday. Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were scheduled to be briefed on the storm at noon ET, with Biden set to make remarks later in the afternoon.
Officials, including Biden and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, warned residents in evacuation zones to leave or face dire consequences. “There is high confidence that this hurricane is going to pack a major, major punch and do an awful lot of damage,” Reuters quoted Governor Ron DeSantis as saying during a morning briefing.
DeSantis, however, assured that the state was prepared.
He noted that hundreds of search and rescue personnel, along with 180 high-water vehicles, were stationed in areas expected to be hit hardest by the storm. Over 6,000 members of the state National Guard and 3,000 from other states were on standby, in addition to 50,000 linemen ready to restore power once the storm passed.
Tampa, home to over 3 million people in its metropolitan area, has not experienced a direct hit from a major hurricane in over a century. Storm surge from Hurricane Milton could elevate water levels up to 12 feet above ground, according to the National Hurricane Center, as quoted by USA Today.
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