Four Florida Universities Close Ahead Of Hurricane Milton

Tallahassee, FL - As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, several public universities have announced campus closures and service disruptions.

The University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota-Manatee will suspend in-person classes and office operations from Monday through Wednesday.

Residence halls will remain open on the Tampa campus, but the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses will close at noon on Monday.

The University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando will suspend operations on all campuses and online classes from Tuesday through Thursday.

Standard operations will continue through 11:59 p.m. on Monday, and are planned to resume at 6 a.m. on Friday.

Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) in Fort Myers will shift to remote learning on Monday.

The campus in Lee County will be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

New College of Florida in Sarasota will be completely closed from Monday through Friday.

All students living on campus will be evacuated by noon on Monday.

For students with nowhere to go, the Sudakoff Conference Center will be available as a temporary shelter.

Hurricane Milton continues to strengthen as it barrels toward Florida.

As of Monday morning, the storm is a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph.

Forecasters predict it could intensify further before making landfall on the state's west coast later this week.