TAMPA, Florida, Oct 8 (Askume) – Hurricane Milton hit Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 5 storm on Tuesday, causing massive traffic jams and fuel shortages as authorities warned more than 1 million people in the Tampa Bay area to evacuate. Evacuations were ordered before the storm arrived.
Milton on Monday became one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded and is expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, threatening parts of Florida’s densely populated west coast that is still reeling from devastating Hurricane Helene.
A direct attack on the bay would be the first since 1921 , when the now-extended Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area was relatively backward. Today, more than 3 million people live here.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned people to stay away from the storm and said Helene was just a warning.
“If you choose to be in one of these evacuation zones, you’re going to die,” Custer said.
In Tampa, Estefany Veliz Hernandez said she and her family were packing pets, important documents and cash before heading to distant relatives’ homes.
“We’re leaving everything behind. We just want to go to a safe place,” he said. “If anything happens — if God keeps you here — at least we’ll all be together.”
The National Hurricane Center said Milton had maximum sustained winds of 165 mph (270 km/h), the highest level on the five-level Saffir–Simpson wind scale.
At 7 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) (0000 GMT), the center of the storm was located 440 mi (710 km) southwest of Tampa, moving east-northeast at 10 mph (17 km/h).
“Milton’s wind field is expected to expand as it approaches Florida. In fact, official forecasts indicate it will have nearly double the intensity of hurricane and tropical storm winds by the time it reaches the surface,” the hurricane center said.
The large size also increased the risk of storm surge for hundreds of miles (kilometers) of coast. The center of the storm produced 10- to 15-foot (3- to 4.5-meter) waves north and south of Tampa Bay, as well as strong winds and heavy rain that threatened inland flooding.
About 2.8% of U.S. GDP is in Milton’s direct path, Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote Tuesday. Companies like airlines, energy companies and Universal Studios theme parksHas begun shutting down operations in Florida to prepare for disruptions .
Hurricane Helene affected the Gulf Coast’s barrier islands and beaches on Sept. 26, making the Tampa Bay area more vulnerable to storms, said Isaac Longley, a meteorologist with commercial forecasting company AccuWeather. Tons of sand was swept away, destroying dunes.
Governor Ron DeSantis said 5,000 National Guard members have been deployed to deal with the aftermath of the storm, and an additional 3,000 National Guard members are on the way.
President Joe Biden suspended foreign travel in response to the storm and urged people under evacuation orders to leave immediately, saying it was a matter of life or death.
won’t be fooled again
More than a dozen coastal counties, including Hillsborough County in Tampa, have issued mandatory evacuation orders. Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, ordered more than 500,000 people to evacuate. Lee County said 416,000 people live in mandatory evacuation zones.
Mobile homes, nursing homes and assisted living facilities are also subject to mandatory evacuation.
In Fort Myers, mobile home resident Jamie Watts and his wife took refuge in a hotel after losing their previous trailer in Hurricane Ian in 2022.
“My wife is happy. We’re not in that steel box,” Watts said.
He said: “We lived there during Ian’s time and we saw the roof of our house blown off and that scared us. So this time I’ll be safer.”
Motorists waited in line around gas stations to refuel, only to discover that some stations were running out of fuel. DeSantis said state troopers provided escorts for refueling trucks at gas stations.
By Tuesday morning, roads out of Tampa were congested.
Musician Mark Feinman, 38, said it took his family 13 hours to drive the 500-mile (805-kilometer) distance from St. Petersburg to Pensacola. He said some drivers were driving too fast and were unable to move beyond the breakdown lane and the grassy area between them, causing accidents.
About 17% of Florida’s roughly 8,000 gas stations had run out of fuel as of Tuesday evening , according to market tracker GasBuddy.
Fueled by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean .
It weakened to a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday but has since strengthened again. Milton is expected to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane after making landfall in Florida, causing catastrophic damage and possibly power outages for days.
The storm has already caused some damage in Mexico, but Yucatan Governor Joaquin Diaz Mena said damage so far was minimal. Thousands of electricity customers remained without power.
Relief operations continue in the southeastern United States after Hurricane Helene killed more than 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage across six states.
