By Marco Lopez
BELMOPAN, Wed. Oct. 9, 2024 – Hurricane Milton is expected to bring a large destructive storm surge along portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula as it makes landfall on Wednesday night.
“If you are in the Storm Surge Warning area, this is an extermely life-Threathening situation. The time to evacuate, if told to do so by local officals, is quickly coming to a close,” the National Hurricane Centre’s 11 AM Advisory stateS.
Hurricane Milton, now a category 4 storm, is powering toward Florida after making a brush past northern Mexico. Milton is expected to downgrade to a category 3 upon landfall, but remain a hurricane as it crosses the Florida Peninsula and spreads inland.
“Preparations should be rushed to completion,” the NHC warns.
Heavy rainfall is expected to batter Florida through Thursday, increasing the risk of catastrophic and deadly flash flooding. Significant impact is expected where coastal and inland flooding combine to increase the overall flood threat.
The storm was downgraded to a category 4 late Tuesday. Hurricane Milton went from just forming as a tropical storm with 40 mph winds to a top-of-the-charts Category 5 hurricane with 160 mph winds – and then got even more powerful.
The Tampa Bay area, which a hurricane has not hit in almost 100 years, is hunkering down and compiling its more than 3.3 million residents to adhere to evacuation orders.
Jane Castor, Tampa’s Mayor warned residents on Monday night that “they would likely die” if they did not follow evacuation orders.
Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said in a press conference this morning that over the next 24 hours teams will transition from a contingency-based plan to a tactical plan to respond to areas most significantly affected by the storm.
As of Wednesday morning, about 31,000 Floridians were in shelters, Guthrie said. He added that there are 149 general population shelters across the state and room for about 200,000 people.
