Florida residents were preparing for Hurricane Milton to make landfall on Wednesday even as they cleaned up after Hurricane Helene which hit less than two weeks ago.
The powerful Category 4 storm was predicted to hit the Tampa Bay area in Florida. Governor Ron Desantis called the storm “ferocious”. Milton is the strongest recorded storm in the Gulf of Mexico since 2005.
Gov. DeSantis said: ” Basically the entire peninsula portion of Florida is under either a watch or a warning… It’s possible that it could hit north of Tampa Bay, it could hit Tampa Bay, it could hit south.”
Tampa Bay Mayor Jane Castor told residents that they could die if they did not heed evacuation orders.
Speaking to CNN, she said: “This is literally catastrophic, and I can say without any dramatisation whatsoever – if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re gonna die. Anyone who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area has never seen anything like this.”
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