Thousands of people are scrambling to flee Florida as catastrophic Hurricane Milton threatens a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St Petersburg, engulfing the region with towering storm surges, Daily Mail reports.
Terrified Floridians are rushing to safety after local officials issued a stark warning overnight advising residents to ‘flee or die’ before the monster storm Hurricane Milton packs furious winds and gushes walls of water inland tomorrow.
Drivers are sitting in standstill traffic this morning as the state’s major highways are clogged with miles-long lines of cars trying to flee the line of danger. Traffic is jammed both north and southbound as locals seek shelter out-of-state and in Miami.
The window has also nearly closed for people to escape the region by plane as airports in Tampa, St Petersburg and Orlando have already started grounding flights.
Residents who have accepted they won’t be able to flee and are preparing to hunker down, have begun panic buying supplies, stripping store shelves of bottled water, toilet paper and other household necessities.
Those who are still desperate to escape and follow evacuation orders say it may be too ‘dangerous’ to hit the roads because local gas stations have run out of fuel. However, Governor Ron DeSantis this morning assured residents that there’s enough fuel for them to get away from the storm.
Hurricane Milton was so strong overnight that experts called for it to be given unprecedented Category 6 status, however the hurricane was downgraded to a Category 4 early this morning. Forecasters warn Hurricane Milton is ‘expected to grow in size’ and remain ‘an extremely dangerous hurricane’ when it makes landfall tomorrow.
Hurricane Milton expanded this morning as it hurtled over the Gulf of Mexico towards Tampa – making it potentially ‘one of the most destructive hurricanes on record’ for west-central Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The hurricane’s 155mph winds are becoming more wide-reaching from the center of the storm – vastly increasing its capacity to cause widespread destruction.
Milton’s gales extended around 80 miles from the eye of the storm through Monday, and this increased to just over 100 miles by Wednesday morning.
‘Milton is still a relatively compact hurricane, but the wind field is expected to continue to grow in size as it approaches Florida,’ the National Hurricane Center said. ‘In fact, the official forecast shows the hurricane and tropical-storm-force winds roughly doubling in size by the time it makes landfall.’
The storm center is expected to come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area, which has not endured a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century. Mayor Jane Castor issued a stark warning to residents yesterday that if they don’t evacuate, ‘you are going to die’.
Locals have taken to social media, detailing their fears as they struggle to evacuate from communities located in Milton’s expected direct path.
Sharing drone footage of clogged traffic along I-75 between Morris Bridge and Bruce B Downs on Monday, one X user said: ‘This is why a lot of people are staying behind, at a certain point traffic is so bad you cannot get out of Florida, or there’s no gas. So you’re stuck outside of Gainesville.’
One woman, whose son lives in Hernando County, said that he is
trapped.
‘Everywhere is out of gas and roads are too backed up for him to [evacuate],’ she tweeted. ‘He has family in Georgia but can’t get there. This is scary. He is scared. I am terrified for him.’
The concerned mother added that her son’s community was also among those flooded by Hurricane Helene last week. She said: ‘Now Milton is heading for them.’
But DeSantis tried to ease fears this morning, saying during a press conference: ‘There is no fuel shortage. Fuel continues to arrive in the state of Florida.’
Despite the long lines at gas stations, DeSantis said officials are working with fuel companies to continue bringing in gasoline.
‘You do not have to get on the interstate and go far away,’ he added. ‘You can evacuate tens of miles; you do not have to evacuate hundreds of miles away. You do have options.’
He added that Florida has helped evacuate more than 200 health care facilities in Milton’s path and that 36 county-run shelters are open.
Still, multiple people have also shared anecdotes on X detailing their fears and claiming they are unable to afford the cost of either driving or flying their way out of the state.
‘I’ve had two people in the last HOUR tell me they can’t afford to evacuate for Hurricane Milton. Never tell me low wages aren’t violent ever again,’ one user on X posted.
A Sarasota resident also claimed they were struggling to get out of the storm’s way.
‘I live in Sarasota, which is in the direct path of Hurricane Milton. They are evacuating my town, but there is no gas left to evacuate, and traffic is so bad that it could be more dangerous to try and evacuate at this point. What would you do if you were me?’
DeSantis said the state would activate 8,000 National Guard members and is positioning truckloads of supplies and equipment near the area where the storm is expected to make landfall.
Meanwhile, the Fort Myers/Naples/Cape Coral area of Florida on the I-75 towards Miami was almost at a standstill Tuesday morning as people tried to flee. Similar scenes are also playing out on the I-4 towards Orlando and the NB I-75 out of Tampa.
Tampa’s airport closed indefinitely from 9am Tuesday, meaning residents can no longer evacuate by plane. The airport posted on X that it is not a shelter for people or their cars.
St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport said it is in a mandatory evacuation zone and will close after the last flight leaves today.
Delta Air Lines ran out of flights from Tampa to Atlanta at 10.30am Monday, with customers having to pay more than $800 for a roundabout flight to Washington DC instead.
Meanwhile, American Airlines was selling flights from Tampa to Atlanta yesterday for between $641 and $2,400, with only a couple of seats remaining on each plane.
Tampa Bay has not been hit directly by a major hurricane since 1921, and authorities fear luck is about to run out for the region and its 3.3 million residents.
‘This is the real deal here with Milton,’ Tampa Mayor Jane Castor told a Monday news conference. ‘If you want to take on Mother Nature, she wins 100 per cent of the time.’
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida, and US Rep. Kathy Castor said 7,000 federal workers were mobilized to help in one of the largest mobilizations of federal personnel in history.
FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell says the agency is moving staff and supplies into place in advance of Milton.
Biden also postponed a trip to Germany and Angola – he had been due to leave Thursday – to oversee the federal response, as storm relief efforts have become a political battleground ahead of the presidential election on November 5.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the change was necessary ‘given the projected trajectory and strength’ of the storm. It wasn’t clear when the trip might be rescheduled. Biden had promised to go to Africa during his term in office, which ends in January.
Republican candidate Donald Trump has tapped into frustration about the emergency response after Helene and fueled it with disinformation, falsely claiming disaster money had been spent instead on migrants.
His Democratic rival Kamala Harris criticized Trump as ‘extraordinarily irresponsible.’