Residents evacuate as Florida braces for the arrival of Hurricane Milton

Hurricane Milton dropped to a Category 4 early Wednesday as it churns toward Florida's west coast. The National Hurricane Center had predicted it would likely weaken, but remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday.

The Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 million people, faced the possibility of widespread destruction after avoiding direct hits from major hurricanes for more than a century.

But in a Wednesday morning briefing, the governor said highway patrol cars with sirens are escorting gasoline tanker trucks to get them through traffic to refill the supply.

“And they are continuing with the fuel escorts as we speak,” he said.

In the Port Charlotte area, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Tampa, officials said water pressure would be lowered Wednesday morning.

Utility operations for Charlotte County also would be suspended at noon. Officials said on the county’s webpage that storm surge and heavy rainfall will inundate the sewer system, making it difficult for wastewater to flow properly.

Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday or early Thursday.

“We must be prepared for a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.

As of Wednesday morning, the storm was about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southwest of Tampa and moving northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).

But there were no immediate strong winds. Most businesses were closed as people finished storm preparations and got to the location where they’ll ride out the storm.

They’re also providing other key information, such as shelter locations. On Wednesday morning, Pinellas County sent people text messages, emails and direct cellphone calls to warn of the dangers. Similar methods are used in neighboring Hillsborough County and other locations.

“This is it, folks,” Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out and you need to get out now.”

Perkins said 13 public shelters are open for people with no other option to escape the storm and that major bridges around Tampa Bay would begin closing in the afternoon. Perkins also said people should not feel a sense of relief because of indications Milton might come ashore south of Tampa.

“Everybody in Tampa Bay should assume we are going to be ground zero,” she said.

Human-caused climate change boosted a devastating Hurricane Helene ’s rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as a strengthening Hurricane Milton threatens the Florida coast less than two weeks later.

The warming climate boosted Helene’s wind speeds by about 13 mph (21 kph), and made the high sea temperatures that fueled the storm 200 to 500 times more likely, World Weather Attribution calculated Wednesday from Europe. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average, WWA said.

“Hurricane Helene and the storms that were happening in the region anyway have all been amplified by the fact that the air is warmer and can hold more moisture, which meant that the rainfall totals — which, even without climate change, would have been incredibly high given the circumstances — were even higher,” Ben Clarke, a study co-author and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, said in an interview.

Milton will likely be similarly juiced, the authors said.

The scientists warned that continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more hurricanes like Helene, with “unimaginable” floods well inland, not just on coasts. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds.

In Charlotte Harbor, about two blocks from the water, Josh Parks spent Wednesday morning packing his Kia sedan with his clothes and other belongings from his small triplex apartment.

The clouds were swirling and the winds had begun to gust. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, its streets still filled with waterlogged furniture, torn out drywall and other debris.

“It’s a ghost town around here,” said Parks, an auto technician.

His roommate had already fled and Parks wasn’t sure when he would be back.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” said Parks, who was fleeing to his daughter’s inland home.

Law enforcement vehicles blocked the bridge from the mainland to the barrier island of St. Pete Beach on Wednesday morning, where as of Tuesday evening, officials had closed down access to this string of low-lying barrier islands that jut out into the Gulf.

All residents in these low-lying communities west of the city of St. Petersburg are under mandatory evacuation orders, as another storm bears down less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed 12 people in the Tampa Bay area, including residents who didn’t leave – and then drowned in their homes.

At a park bench on the side of the road that cuts through the small island of Deadman Key, plastic bags stuffed with clothes and a shopping cart full of someone’s personal belongings sat in the blowing rain, seemingly abandoned by its owner ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected impact.

Three boats were already dashed against a low-lying seawall and under a bridge, apparently casualties from Helene, which sent deadly storm surge into scores of homes in Pinellas County, even as the eye of that storm stayed 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore from this stretch of the coast.

Officials are warning that a direct hit from Hurricane Milton would bring far greater risks to this part of the state.

The National Weather Service on Wednesday morning issued the watch, which includes a vast part of Florida, including the Tampa area, the Florida Keys and Miami-Dade County.

“We’ve seen a lot of questions about, ‘well I live on a creek,’ or ‘I live on a river, is it really going to get 10 to 15 feet where I live?,’” Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi said in a briefing early Wednesday.

“That storm surge is going to start at 10 or 15 feet near the coastline and then it’s going to travel,” she said. “And storm surge likes to go on the path of least resistance. So those of you that live near a river, that live near a creek, those river banks, their water will come up.”

“We do not want you staying in your home if you’re anywhere near a body of water,” Tapfumaneyi said.

“This is going to be an intense disaster for Sarasota County,” she added. “Evacuate now if you have not done so already.”

(AP)