Tornado watches in effect as Category 4 Hurricane Milton approaches Florida
More than 12 million people in the state of Florida are facing the threat of tornadoes along with hail and wind, the National Weather Service has said.
In addition, the city of Tampa is officially closed through Friday, officials said on the city’s website.
Hurricane Milton is churning toward Florida’s west coast. The Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 million people, is facing the possibility of widespread destruction after avoiding direct hits from major hurricanes for more than a century.
The following are the latest updates from The Associated Press over the past couple of hours…
National Weather service says much of the southern part of Florida is under a tornado watch
By PATRICK WHITTLE
More than 12 million people in the state faced threat of tornadoes along with hail and wind, the service said.
The city of Tampa is officially closed through Friday, officials said on the city’s website.
Large swaths of Hillsborough County were under mandatory evacuation orders. The city of Tampa was providing real-time flooding information via its website. However, city officials said it was past time for residents to evacuate or stay home.
“Stay home today. By this time, you should be either evacuated or hunkering down,” the city said in a post X on Wednesday morning.
The city was still working to gather debris from Hurricane Helene in advance of Milton’s arrival.
An apparent tornado touched down in a Fort Myers neighbourhood near Page Field Airport
By TERRY SPENCER, MARTA LAVANDIER
It happened Wednesday afternoon, well in advance of Hurricane Milton’s arrival.
Tree limbs were snapped off, the canopy from a gas station was torn to shreds and pieces of it littered the road, and ice machine was thrown about 30 feet (9 meters).
The neighbourhood has branches from trees strewn across the road. The area remains in a tornado watch throughout the day.
Language barriers and lack of money is a matter of life and death with Milton approaching
By GISELA SALOMON
Hurricane Milton is expected to unleash its greatest force over hundreds of thousands of immigrants who don’t speak English, most of them Latin Americans harvesting oranges and tomatoes in the fields along Florida’s I-4 corridor, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning hotel rooms and working construction.
For the Spanish speakers and a smaller number of African refugees, new lives in the U.S. were already a daily struggle because of the language barrier and lack of resources.
Milton has turned those obstacles into a matter of life and death.
Florida is home to at least 4.8 million immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. After Miami, Orlando and Tampa are the metropolitan areas with the highest number of immigrants, the majority coming from Latin American countries such as Mexico and Venezuela.
Immigration advocates and consulate officials have been reaching out to them in Tampa, Orlando and central Florida towns to help with evacuation plans and otherwise prepare. They’re sharing information in Spanish, French and African languages and making calls, sending text messages and sharing social media posts with information about shelters, evacuations and places to pick up sandbags, food, water, shelters and gasoline.
Four major bridges in the Tampa Bay area, including the famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge, have closed
By CURT ANDERSON
The Skyway spans the mouth of Tampa Bay and links Pinellas and Manatee counties, carrying Interstate 275. It’s often closed when winds from any source reach a certain threshold.
The other three bridges cross Tampa Bay, linking Tampa with cities such as Clearwater and St. Petersburg. Those are the Howard Frankland, which also carries I-275, the Gandy and the Courtney Campbell Causeway.
Milton could cost insurers more than Helene
By PAUL HARLOFF
Milton could be the first hurricane in more than 100 years to directly hit the Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3 million people.
Insured losses could reach in the tens of billions of dollars at least, with the potential for more than $75 billion in losses if the storm directly hits Tampa as a Category 3 or stronger storm, according to an estimate from BMO Capital Markets.
Milton will be making landfall in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which wreaked havoc across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Helene hit a much less-populated area in the region. Inland areas at higher elevations, especially in western North Carolina, faced catastrophic flooding and many of homeowners lacked flood insurance. That will limit the number of claims to be paid out.
The ratings agency Moody’s estimates insured losses from Helene could reach up to $14 billion. Flood insurance is typically excluded from most homeowners’ policies and the U.S. government administers most of the nation’s flood insurance. Moody’s estimates the National Flood Insurance Program’s losses from Helene could reach $2 billion.
Hurricane Katrina, which slammed into New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast in 2005, was the costliest storm to ever hit the U.S. Insured losses measured $102 billion, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Insured losses from the Category 4 Hurricane Ian, which hit the West Coast of Florida in September 2022, were estimated in excess of $50 billion.
A curfew will begin Wednesday night in Charlotte County
By COREY WILLIAMS
A 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew has been enacted in Charlotte County, along southwestern Florida’s Gulf Coast, officials said on the county’s webpage.
The curfew begins Wednesday night, is in place until further notice and prohibits the sale of alcohol in the county between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until the curfew is lifted. Violating the curfew is a misdemeanour.
“Although I recognize the frustrations that come with enacting a curfew, this is a means of protecting the people and property of Charlotte County during and following Hurricane Milton,” Sheriff Bill Prummell said. “As soon as it is safe, I will recommend the order be rescinded. Until that time, the only people who should be out on the roadways during those hours are essential workers as they strive to assess damage and provide assistance to those in need and people traveling to and from work.”
The curfew will be strictly enforced in Punta Gorda, Police Chief Pam Smith added.
“This curfew will allow emergency responders to focus on post-storm rescue and recovery efforts,” Smith said.
Surge from Hurricane Milton starting to appear in Cape Coral
By TERRY SPENCER
Just after noon Wednesday, surge was already starting to appear along the harbor in Cape Coral, at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River.
The water had moved well up the beach and was nearing the parking lot. A pier was within a foot of being submerged.
Heavy rains from bands associated with Hurricane Milton were bringing heavy rain and wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph).
In Lee County, the public safety director says the time to evacuate has passed
By KEN MILLER
In Lee County, which includes Fort Myers about 95 miles (153 kilometres) southeast of Tampa, Public Safety Director Ben Abes said Wednesday that the county’s law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services will not respond to calls beginning later Wednesday when the weather worsens.
“Our area hospitals may also lock down, which would prevent access for … ambulances,” Abes said.
Abes said tropical storm force winds were coming ashore and the time to evacuate has passed.
“It is not safe to be out, and it is not safe to return to your home if you have evacuated,” Abes said. “The time to shelter in place is now.”
Abes said the county’s 13 shelters are housing more than 6,700 people.
St. Petersburg mayor says to prepare for a long recovery after Milton hits
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
St. Petersburg officials warned residents Wednesday afternoon that regardless of where the storm hits, the city should prepare for extended power outages and the possible shutdown of its sewerage system.
Mayor Ken Welch said residents should brace for a long recovery.
“This is the reality of a direct hit from a powerful hurricane in our area. This is not a storm that we will recover from quickly. We have a long road ahead of us, but we will recover and we will rebuild,” Welch said. “But for the next several hours, our focus is to keep everyone safe, and we can do that.”
Vice President Kamala Harris warns against jacking up prices on people dealing with back-to-back hurricanes
By NANCY BENAC
“Those evacuating before Hurricane Milton or recovering from Hurricane Helene should not be subject to illegal price gouging or fraud – at the pump, airport, or hotel counter,” she said in a statement Wednesday.
Harris said the federal government is tracking allegations and “will hold those taking advantage of the situation accountable.”
President Joe Biden made a similar demand Tuesday.
“I’m calling on the airlines and other companies to provide as much service as possible to accommodate evacuations and not to engage in price gouging, to just do it on the level,” he said at the White House.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out at people who spread false information online
By JEFF MARTIN
At a Wednesday briefing, DeSantis responded to a question about social media messages falsely suggesting federal emergency officials aren’t going to let residents back into their homes after Hurricane Milton strikes.
“We live in an era where if you put out crap online, you can get a lot of people to share it and you can monetize that. That’s just the way it is,” DeSantis said.
“If you’re hearing things — something that’s just outrageous — just know, in the state of Florida none of that stuff would ever fly,” he said.
“FEMA is not leading this show, we are leading this show here in the state of Florida. We’re marshalling whatever assets are available to us, we’re leveraging that.”
“There’s not going to be anything where FEMA is ever going to be able to keep you from your home,” he said.
“Be careful about the nonsense that gets circulated, and just know that the more titillating it is, the more likely somebody is making money off it,” he added. “And they don’t really give a damn about the well-being and safety of the people that are actually in the eye of this storm, it’s all just trying to monetize what they’re doing.”
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