TAMPA, Fla. — Millions in Florida are bracing for a potentially catastrophic punch from major Hurricane Milton, which threatens a historically deep and dangerous storm surge to a large swath of Florida’s west coast along with wind gusts well over 100 mph when the storm strikes Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

Milton regained Category 5 strength Tuesday evening, a day after becoming among the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin. When it reaches the Florida coast, it is still forecast to be a major hurricane.

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“It’s worth emphasizing that this is a very serious situation,” the National Hurricane Center warned on Tuesday. “Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.”

State officials have been scrambling since Monday to get millions off vulnerable coastlines in what is described as the largest mass evacuation in Florida since Hurricane Irma in 2017.  Storm surge forecasts along the central western coast are predicting 10–15 feet of water topped with devastating waves driven by hurricane-force winds. Those levels — significantly higher than the damage wrought just last month by Hurricane Helene — would surpass anything seen in over a century in the Tampa Bay area.

“Yes, you might have ‘been through hurricanes before,’” FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross said. “But you weren’t through the 1921 storm that put water over much of Pinellas County, or the 1848 hurricane that put 15 feet of Gulf water where downtown Tampa is today.” 

The Florida National Guard has mobilized 5,000 troops to assist with the response, with an additional 3,000 expected to be deployed before the storm makes landfall. The Florida Department of Transportation opened the shoulders on Interstate 4 and Interstate 75 going north to help speed up evacuations, and tolls have been suspended.

“Before Hurricane Ian hit Southwest Florida, some people got confused, ended up making terrible decisions, and died, Norcross said. “Don’t let that happen to you.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a State of Emergency over the weekend for 51 of the state’s 67 counties, and on Monday, President Joe Biden approved the state’s pre-landfall emergency declaration request.

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Shelters have started opening and the state has partnered with Uber to provide residents with free rides to and from shelters for those trying to escape Milton’s eventual wrath. To the north, Atlanta Motor Speedway said it was opening its campgrounds free of charge to evacuated Florida residents.

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On Tuesday, the first evacuations were ordered on Florida’s east coast in St. John’s County, including St. Augustine Beach. The county will experience a storm surge from the backside of Milton as it barrels across the state. 

Devastating winds to tear across the heart of the state

Aside from the life-threatening storm surge, Milton is forecast to bring wind speeds well over 100 mph around the eyewall where the hurricane makes landfall. That includes the Tampa area, which has potential wind gusts over 95 mph or more at landfall.

Milton Wind Threat

(FOX Weather)

But even after landfall, damaging winds are expected to track across the central Florida Peninsula. Milton is forecast to maintain hurricane strength even through its trek along the Atlantic coast, with Hurricane Warnings covering 11 million including the Orlando area and along the east coast from the St. Lucie/Martin County Line northward to Ponte Vedra Beach.

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Storm surge will also be felt along the Atlantic coast of Florida from the Space Coast to the First Coast. This includes cities such as Daytona Beach, St. Augustine and Jacksonville Beach. 

Rainfall totals will reach 8-12 inches along Milton’s path with isolated totals reaching 18 inches. And Milton will present a threat of scattered tornadoes even ahead of landfall.  

Schools, airports, theme parks close

As Floridians hunker down to ride out the storm, widespread closures of businesses, schools and travel hubs are common.

Tampa International Airport (TPA) suspended operations on Tuesday morning, while Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB) in Sanford,  Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) in Fort Myers, and Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB) in Melbourne will close to commercial flights starting on Wednesday.

Schools and universities across much of the state shuttered classes through at least Thursday.  Disney Parks, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld are among the theme parks announcing they will close for Milton.

Kennedy Space Center’s visitor complex is closed through Thursday.

Race against the clock

Along central Florida’s western beaches, scars still linger from Hurricane Helene which less than two weeks ago slammed the region as a Category 3 storm with feet of storm surge and hurricane-force winds on its way to the Big Bend area.  

Piles of debris line sidewalks as reminders of the first hurricane’s destruction, now threatening to become airborne missiles in triple-digit winds or powerful debris floating atop an even higher storm surge.

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Tuesday, an army of dump trucks and bulldozers rolled into neighborhoods to try and scrape as much of the piles of debris as possible, but the task is daunting.

“Literally hundreds of blocks that have been decimated,” FOX Weather Storm Specialist Mike Seidel reported from Madeira Beach in Pinellas County, Florida. “They’ve done about a block (of cleanup)… in about 45 minutes to an hour or so. There’s blocks and blocks of this, and we’re running out of time before the weather goes downhill later (Wednesday), certainly (Wednesday) night.”

Seidel estimated that the city would need another two weeks to clear all the mountains of debris. “But we don’t have that. We don’t have that luxury,” he said. “Just back to back here from Helene into Milton here in Pinellas County.”

Hurricane Milton is expected to sweep past Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, bringing sustained winds of nearly 155 mph (250km/h), as the category 4 storm heads towards Florida’s dangerously exposed Tampa Bay.

The storm’s trajectory suggested it would pass the Mexican city of Mérida, home to 1.2 million people, in the early hours of Tuesday morning before swerving north towards the US. Mexican officials have been bussing people out of low-lying coastal areas.

Milton is projected to hit the south-west coast of Florida by Wednesday evening local time, the US National Weather Service said in its latest update, and could cause destruction in areas already reeling from Hurricane Helene’s devastation nearly two weeks ago.

Almost all of Florida’s west coast was under a hurricane warning, with more than a million people told to evacuate, fleeing potentially catastrophic damage and power outages that could last days. With one day left for people to leave, local officials raised concerns about traffic jams and long queues at fuel stations.

US forecasters and officials fear Milton could make landfall in the Tampa Bay region, home to more than 3 million people. Tampa has not had a direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921 and could see waters rise by 15ft (4.5 metres).

Hurricane damage modellers have for years warned that the Tampa Bay area is particularly vulnerable to rising seas caused by storm surges, owing to its wide and shallow seabed, which can push water upwards.

The mayor of Tampa, which is low-lying and has a population of 3.3 million, issued a stark warning to residents as Hurricane Milton dashed across the Gulf of Mexico.

“If you choose to stay … you are going to die,” said the mayor, Jane Castor.

Castor delivered the blunt assessment to CNN on Monday while also describing Milton as a “literally catastrophic” hurricane projected to push up to 15ft of Gulf water inland – an amount that officials say is deadly.

Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in late September, caused more than 200 deaths and catastrophic damage stretching from Florida to the Appalachian mountains. There are fears that mounds of building rubble left in Helene’s wake could turn into dangerous debris if caught up in Milton’s floods and winds.

The National Weather Service downgraded Milton early on Tuesday to a category 4 hurricane but forecasters said it still posed an extremely serious threat.

“While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida,” the agency said.

The slight weakening from category 5 status attained Monday occurred after Milton’s barometic pressure rose slightly to 924m from 879m. That happened as Milton appeared to be undergoing an eye wall replacement, which can briefly raise barometric pressure and reduce its intensity.

However, the phenomenon tends to make a hurricane wider, increasing its windfield. Projections expect the hurricane to restrengthen to a category 5 then weaken as it approaches Florida, though the storm’s effects are still going to be potent.

Milton is due to become the 10th major hurricane – category 3 or higher – to make landfall along the US’s Gulf coast since 2017, gaining power from the warm seas in the gulf. Milton was the third fastest-intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, the agency said.

Weather and climate experts attribute such a high rate of powerful, destructive storms to the climate crisis, spurred by the burning of fossil fuels.

Before Milton’s arrival, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency for 51 of its 67 counties. “What you don’t want to do is stay in an area where you have 10, 15ft of storm surge,” he told Fox News on Monday.

DeSantis also told Floridians to make sure they had a week’s food and water and were braced for more evacuation orders.

The governor is pro-fossil fuels and has criticised climate action as being led by “radical green zealots”.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Hurricane Milton has “explosively intensified” in the southern Gulf of Mexico as it continues on its path towards Florida. Milton underwent rapid intensification, from a tropical storm on Sunday morning into a strong Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours.  

Within each public advisory that the National Hurricane Center releases, adjustments to the track of this storm system are also adjusted. The forecast track with Milton has its sights set on the western coast of Florida, but the position of the center of the storm, or the “eye,” can determine how catastrophic the impacts are on the Tampa Bay area. 

As Milton intensified into a major hurricane with wind speeds upwards of 180 mph, the strength of the system increased the severity of the storm surge forecast to all coastal areas, including the Gulf Coast of Florida. The eastern side of the eye is considered the “dirty side” of the storm, which is where the winds tend to be the strongest. As the forecast track shifts northward, the dirty side then falls over Tampa Bay. This, in turn, creates a more severe hazard of storm surge in that confined area.  

In addition, the waters on the Gulf side of Florida are much more shallow than on the Atlantic side, which can make storm surge even more impactful to communities along the Gulf. 

The National Hurricane Center has increased the peak storm surge forecast from 8-12 feet to 10-15 feet of inundation for the area from Anclote River to Tampa Bay. This increased severity is directly in response to the strength of the storm as its maximum sustained wind speed increased.  

“The deepest water will occur along the immediate coast near and to the south of the landfall location, where the surge will be accompanied by large and dangerous waves,” the NHC said in a Monday afternoon advisory. “Surge-related flooding depends on the relative timing of the surge and the tidal cycle, and can vary greatly over short distances.”  

In another advisory Monday evening, NHC stated, “While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida.”  

All coastal residents and visitors are being urged to heed local officials’ evacuation orders that are in place.