Hurricane Milton Whips Across the Gulf as a Category 5 Storm Targeting Tampa, Central Florida
Florida’s west coast bracing for direct impact just one week after Hurricane Helene.
Evacuations are underway in the state of Florida after Hurricane Milton ramped up to a Category 5 storm just more than one week after Hurricane Helene left the Big Bend region decimated.
The current storm is poised to be the largest of its size to hit the Sunshine State since 2018 when Hurricane Michael made landfall along the panhandle. The previous storm of this magnitude was Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the most destructive storm to ever hit the state.
Milton is currently moving east through the Gulf of Mexico about 770 miles away from the Tampa Bay area and whipping up maximum sustained winds of 175 miles per , according to WESH-TV.
The forceful winds make the storm tied as the fourth largest hurricane in Atlantic Ocean history, according to the X account, OSINTdefender, adding that, “as pressure continues to drop we may be on the verge of one of the strongest hurricanes ever in the Northern Atlantic.”
Current models show the storm making landfall along Florida’s west coast on Wednesday with slightly less intensity but directly on the city of Tampa.
“This is the real deal here with Milton,” mayor of Tampa, Jane Castor said at a news conference. “If you want to take on Mother Nature, she wins 100 percent of the time.”
The Associated Press reports that forecasters are warning of a possible 8-to-12-foot storm surge at Tampa Bay along with flash and river flooding on mainland Florida and the Keys. Forecasters said that if the storm stays on its current track, it will be the worst to hit the Tampa area in more than a century.
The Tampa Bay region is still amidst recovery efforts from the damage doled out by Hurricane Helene, with barrier islands to Clearwater from St. Petersburg taking on the brunt of destruction and leaving 12 people dead.
“They’ve screwed around and haven’t picked the debris up, and now they’re scrambling to get it picked up,” resident Sarah Steslicki, of Belleair Beach said to the AP on Monday morning. “If this one does hit, it’s going to be flying missiles. Stuff’s going to be floating and flying in the air.”
Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, said that there has been difficulty cleaning up the damage from Helene in advance of Milton’s arrival. He cited how state troopers had to use a rope tied to a pickup truck to bust open a locked gate at a landfill where 300 vehicles had arrived to dump debris.
“We don’t have time for bureaucracy and red tape,” Mr. DeSantis said.
It has been two decades since Florida has dealt with a barrage of storms of this magnitude. In 2004, a total of five storms hit Florida within a six-week time span, including three that lashed the central part of the state.
Tampa has not been hit directly by a hurricane in over a century but the wider region along the Gulf Coast is still focused on rebuilding efforts from storms that struck over the past two years. Hurricane Ian in 2022 caused $112 billion in damage to Fort Myers, which has yet to fully recover from the hit. The Big Bend region has already seen three hurricanes in the past 13 months.
