Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida's west coast as a Category 5 as the region is still recovering from the deadly Hurricane Helene.
Milton grew into a Category 5 hurricane early Monday and is taking aim at the very same region that Hurricane Helene slammed into less then two weeks ago. Feeding off of the extremely warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico the storm went from a tropical storm to a Category 5 Hurricane in matter of days.
Officials are racing to clean up the debris left from Helene as it can pose a serious risk when the inevitable storm surge and winds from Milton come ashore.
Evacuation orders have been issued for much of the Tampa Bay area as dangerous storm surges and sustained winds of up to 160 mph are expected from Milton. In St. Petersburg, officials are warning that the surge could be twice as great during Milton as compared to Helene.
Tampa International Airport has announced that they will stop all flights in or out of the airport at 9 a.m. on Tuesday ahead of Miltons landfall. St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport said it is in a mandatory evacuation zone and will close after the last flights leave on Tuesday.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center has issued storm surge warnings for almost the entirety of Florida’s west coast, from Flamingo at the state’s southern tip to the Suwanee River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico about halfway between Tallahassee and Tampa.
The majority of that area was also under a hurricane warning. The hurricane center also issued storm surge watches on the U.S. East Coast including much of Florida up to parts of South Carolina.
Hurricane Milton’s sustained wind speeds increased to 180 mph (290 kph) Monday afternoon, the hurricane center said. The Category 5 storm, located 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the coast of Progreso, Mexico, was moving east at 10 mph (17 kph).
“Milton poses an extremely serious threat to Florida and residents are urged to follow the orders of local officials,” the hurricane center said in their latest storm advisory.
While speaking with CNN's Kaitlan Collins Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said "I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die."
Speaking with reporters on Monday Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that this storm is far stronger than it was predicted to be two days ago.
"This is a ferocious hurricane," DeSantis said.
DeSantis added that while the storm is expected to weaken after it makes landfall, residents shouldn't bank on it, and said Milton will cause destruction regardless.
“At the strength it is now, this is a really, really strong storm. The effects of that, not just from the storm surge but from wind damage and debris, will be really, really significant,” DeSantis said. “This is not a storm you want to take a risk on.”
Earlier on Monday President Joe Biden made an emergency declaration for the state of Florida allowing the federal government to provide supplemental disaster assistance.
Biden called on Congress to return from recess to authorize additional FEMA funding, but House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would not commit to bringing representatives back before the November election.
The White House in a letter to Congressional representatives said while FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund has the resources to meet immediate needs, the fund will face a shortfall by the end of the year.
"Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs. The Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing both for the short and long term," the letter reads.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that FEMA does not have enough money to get through the rest of hurricane season.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Johnson was pressed on whether he would call Congress back into session ahead of the election. He responded saying "We'll be back in session immediately after the election."
"That's 30 days from now. The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that," Johnson said. Johnson added that before Congress went on recess they appropriated $20 billion of additional funding to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address immediate needs.
Milton is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida on Wednesday and is expected to weaken into a Category 3 storm when it hits the shores of the Tampa Bay region. Tampa has not had a direct head-on-hit by a major hurricane in more than a century.
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