TAMPA, Florida – Hurricane Milton approached Florida’s ravaged Gulf Coast as a Category 5 hurricane on Tuesday, causing severe traffic congestion and fuel shortages as officials warned more than 1 million people to escape before it hit the Tampa Bay region.
Milton, which erupted on Monday into one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, was expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, harming a stretch of Florida’s densely populated west coast that is still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene less than two weeks earlier.
A direct impact on the bay would be the first since 1921, when the now-spreading Tampa–St. Petersburg-Clearwater was a relative backwater. It now has a population of almost three million.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor cautioned residents not to wait out the storm, calling Helene a mere wake-up call.
“If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die,” Castor told the crowd.
Estephani Veliz Hernandez of Tampa said she and her family were gathering their pets, necessary documents, and money before traveling to a relative’s home further inland.
“We’re leaving everything behind. We’re just trying to get to safety,” she told us. “If anything happens — if God says here you go — we’re all together at least.”
The US National hurricane Center raised Milton back to a Category 5 storm on Tuesday, which is the highest classification on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, when maximum sustained winds increased to 165 miles per hour (270 km/h).
At 4 p.m. CDT (2100 GMT), the storm’s eye was 480 miles (775 km) southwest of Tampa and heading east-northeast at 9 mph (15 kph).
“Milton’s wind field is expected to expand as it approaches Florida. In fact, the official forecast shows the hurricane and tropical-storm-force winds roughly doubling in size by the time it makes landfall,” the National Hurricane Center reported.
The increased magnitude also broadens the risk of storm surge to hundreds of miles (kilometres) of shoreline. The hurricane center predicts surges of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) north and south of Tampa Bay, as well as strong gusts and the possibility of inland flash floods from heavy rainfall.
Hurricane Helene, which hit the Gulf Coast’s barrier islands and beaches on September 26, made the Tampa Bay area more vulnerable by wiping away tons of sand, tearing down dunes, and blowing away dune grass. According to Isaac Longley, a meteorologist for AccuWeather, this might worsen Milton’s storm surge.
“There’s no gradual slope left to mitigate any of it,” Longley informed us.
Dump trucks have been working around the clock to clear Helene’s debris mounds, fearing Milton would convert them into lethal projectiles, according to Governor Ron DeSantis. 5,000 National Guard personnel have been sent, with an additional 3,000 on standby for the storm’s aftermath.
To emphasize the storm’s threat, President Joe Biden postponed his trip to Germany and Angola from October 10-15 to oversee storm preparedness and reaction, the White House announced on Tuesday.
Biden urged anyone under evacuation orders to evacuate immediately, claiming it was a case of life or death.