Weather-weary Florida braced for the brunt of Hurricane Milton on Tuesday, a ferocious storm that packs fierce winds and threatens to send walls of water inland.
As the second major hurricane in as many weeks moved toward the state’s battered west coast, a sense of impending disaster spread and people fled their homes to run to shelters or wherever they could.
By Tuesday morning, Milton was producing maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (230 kph) and the threat of storm surge up to 15 feet, with the National Hurricane Center calling it an “extremely dangerous” storm, and urging people Pay attention to withdrawal orders.
It said the Category 4 hurricane was expected to move just north of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday.
After weakening to a maximum Category 5 overnight, it will hit the Florida coast on Wednesday night and remain powerful across the state.
At a news conference Tuesday, Gov. Ron Santis detailed city by city and county by county who are at risk.
“Basically the entire peninsula portion of Florida is under some type of watch or warning,” he said.
The mayor of Tampa, a metropolitan area of 3 million that was hit hard by Hurricane Helene last month, was blunt in her assessment.
“Helen was a wake-up call. This is truly devastating,” Mayor Jane Castor said on CNN.
“I can say this without any dramatization: If you choose to live in one of those evacuation zones, you are going to die.”
‘Very terrible’
A Florida TV meteorologist had tears in his eyes talking about how Milton had quickly moved from Category 1.
“I’m sorry,” meteorologist John Morales said as he surveyed the data. “It’s terrible.”
The National Weather Service said Milton could be the worst hurricane to hit the Tampa area in more than 100 years.
Scientists say global warming is playing a role in these intense storms as warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, providing additional energy for storms, increasing their winds.
Communities affected by Hurricane Helene, which struck Florida late last month, rushed to remove debris that could have become dangerous projectiles as it approached Milton.
The succession of hurricanes has escalated political discord ahead of the upcoming US elections.
DeSantis, a conservative known for his confrontation with the federal government, came under fire after broadcaster NBC reported that he was ignoring Vice President Kamala Harris’ phone calls over Helen’s recovery.
The White House said DeSantis spoke with President Joe Biden about preparations for Milton.
Harris criticized the Republican governor for “playing political games.”
Former President Donald Trump took advantage of genuine frustration about the federal response after Helene and fueled it with disinformation, falsely claiming that disaster funds were spent on migrants.
In Yucatan, Mexico, workers boarded up glass doors and windows, fishermen pulled boats ashore and schools were suspended.
In the southeastern United States, emergency workers are still struggling to provide relief after Helene, which killed at least 230 people in several states.
It struck the Florida coast as a major Category 4 hurricane on September 26, causing widespread flooding in remote inland towns in states to the north, including North Carolina and Tennessee.
Helen was the deadliest natural disaster to hit the mainland US since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, with the death toll still rising.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
