( NYPost )
Florida’s west coast is facing the worst hurricane threat in over 100 years, forecasters warned Monday as Hurricane Milton grew into a massive Category 5 storm.
More than 15 million Floridians were under threat from Milton, which has winds up to 160 mph, as the storm took aim at Tampa and St. Petersburg — threatening 8 to 12 feet of deadly storm surge.
The worst surge was expected to hit between the Anclote River north Clearwater and Englewood north of Fort Myers.
To make matters worse, the angle of the landfall could allow the new storm system to become the worst in over 100 years for parts of west-central Florida, Fox Weather reported.
Tampa hasn’t been hit with a major deadly hurricane since 1921, when 11 feet of storm surge inundated what is now the downtown section of the city, according to MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel who said the whole city is low-lying and susceptible to flooding.
“It’s a huge population. It’s very exposed, very inexperienced and that’s a losing proposition,” Emanuel, who has studied hurricanes for 40 years, said. “I always thought Tampa would be the city to worry about most.”
Authorities once again warned people who refused to leave their homes in the evacuation zone to write their names and personal information on their arms in permanent marker so that their bodies could be identified.
Milton started Monday as an alarming Category 2 hurricane — before being upgraded three times in just over two hours into a major Category 5 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center.
It is projected to make landfall Wednesday, likely hitting near the heavily populated Tampa Bay area — with the hurricane center warning that it is still forecast to “undergo rapid intensification” before then.
Storm surge and flood watches were issued for Florida’s Gulf Coast as Milton hit maximum sustained winds of 150 mph — just 7 mph shy of Category 5 status.
“I’m just gonna distill it down and put it in some plainspeak — everybody’s just got to get out,” warned Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, which includes Clearwater and St. Petersburg.
“This is going to be bad. That’s all you need to know,” he said of warnings that the storm surge could top 8 feet along his county’s coastal regions.
“There’s going to reach a point where you are on your own, because we are not going to get our people killed because you don’t want to listen to what we’re saying.”
Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s emergency management division, urged residents to be prepared for the “largest evacuation that we have seen most likely since 2017 Hurricane Irma,” when 7 million Floridians were ordered to evacuate.
“I highly encourage you to evacuate,” Guthrie said during a press conference
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also said that while it remains to be seen where Milton will strike, it’s clear the state is going to be hit hard.
“You have time to prepare … be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” DeSantis said Sunday.
“If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”
The governor placed 51 of the state’s counties under emergency orders Sunday and said residents should be prepared for widespread outages and disruption.
Even before Milton was upgraded Monday, it posed “an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge from Milton for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning Tuesday night or early Wednesday,” the hurricane center had warned.
“Residents should follow any advice given by local officials and evacuate if told to do so,” the federal agency warned.
The storm is expected to remain at its current strength for the next few days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The Tampa Bay area was still reeling from the effects of Helene, which left extensive damage and killed at least 230 people across six states.
Helene was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, before soon being downgraded — but devastating some areas to the point that they are now unrecognizable.
Milton, however, could remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean — which would spare the other states devastated by Helene.
The center of the storm was about 150 miles west of Progreso, Mexico, and about 735 miles southwest of Tampa early Monday. It was moving east-southeast at 8 mph, according to the hurricane center.
Comments