A Category 5 Hurricane Milton is set to hit the Tampa Bay region of Florida today, weather services have announced, and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor has warned residents to heed the authorities and evacuate.
“If you choose to stay in any of those areas that should be evacuated – you will die,” Castor told CNN, adding that the threat posed by Hurricane Milton could be “catastrophic.”
Tampa Bay is a region that has not been hit by a hurricane in over a century.
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Hurricane Milton strengthened yesterday to a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 265 kilometers per hour, putting almost the entire west coast of Florida under a warning.
The strongest recorded Atlantic hurricane was Allen in the 1980s, which reached wind speeds of 306 kilometers per hour.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced yesterday that the state is preparing for its largest evacuation of residents since 2017, and that the storm could cause power outages for a larger number of residents than Hurricane Helena did a dozen days ago in several US states.
US President Joe Biden has approved a state of emergency declaration for Florida, and 7,000 government officials have been mobilized to assist in one of the largest mobilizations of federal personnel in history.
The US states of North Carolina, Florida, and much of South Carolina are still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Helena.
More than 200 people have died in six US states in Hurricane Helena, making it the deadliest since nearly 1,400 people died in Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
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Source: Nova.rs
Photo: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia