Category 4 Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida
Hurricane Milton, which is currently a Category 4 storm, is set to make landfall around Tampa, Florida, late Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning.
A boarded up business stands beside a deserted street in an evacuation zone, ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Anna Maria, Fla.,on Tuesday, Oct. 8. (AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor has offered a grim warning to those who don’t follow evacuation orders ahead of Hurricane Milton.
"I’ve said many times that you want to pick a fight with Mother Nature, she’s winning 100 percent of the time," Castor said Tuesday. "And individuals that are in these, say you’re in a single-story home. Twelve feet is above that house. So, if you’re in it, you know, basically that’s the coffin you’re in."
Hurricane Milton has been downgraded for a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday morning as it makes its approach to Florida, according to FOX Weather.
Forecasters say it will likely remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall on Florida's west coast later on Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning.
The massive storm, as of 5 a.m. ET Wednesday, was located about 300 miles southwest from Tampa, Florida.
FOX Weather's Scott Sistek contributed to this report.
Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis told 'Fox & Friends' on Wednesday that “We have got more resources in the form of urban search and rescue pre-staged in the state of Florida than we have ever had for any natural disaster.
“We have got teams all the way from Washington state to Virginia that are ready to roll as soon as it’s safe to get these brave men and women out into harm’s way to save lives,” he continued.
Patronis also said “I plead with people – check on your elderly, check on your neighbors. Some people are so overwhelmed by the circumstances, especially the elderly, that they are not heeding the warnings.”
“The Tampa Bay market got hit by Helene, they know the stove is hot and they will not take a chance of getting burned a second time,” he added.
Highway signage announces the impending arrival of Hurricane Milton and the evacuations zones on Tuesday, Oct. 8, in Port Richey, Fla. (AP/Mike Carlson)
As Hurricane Milton approaches west central Florida, highways are filled with evacuees, creating a perfect storm for looters to monopolize on the impending weather event.
"If you think you’re going to go in and loot, you got another thing coming," Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a briefing at the state’s Emergency Operations Center.
"If you go into somebody’s house after the storm passes, think that you’re going to be able to commit crimes, you’re going to get in really serious trouble. And quite frankly, you don’t know what’s behind that door in a Second Amendment state."
Geoff Fahringer, who worked for 50 years in law enforcement and has taught a number of courses centered around emergency preparedness, explained how homeowners can make their properties less attractive to would-be burglars.
He recommends to make it look like someone is home and advertise alarm systems and cameras around the home -- even if you don't actually have an alarm or surveillance system -- among other strategies.
Duke Energy project manager Tiger Yates, bottom center, walks among the hundreds of lineman trucks staged, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at The Villages, Fla. in preparation for Hurricane Milton. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via AP)
A photo has captured hundreds of lineman trucks being staged in The Villages in central Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall later tonight.
Florida Power & Light – the state’s largest utility – says “our restoration workforce of more than 14,000 men and women from 37 states as far west as California are positioned across Florida to restore power safely and as quickly as possible for our customers.”
“There will be widespread outages,” the company’s president and CEO Armando Pimentel said in a video message recorded at the St. Lucie County Fairgrounds, where trucks also are being gathered.
“Hurricane Milton is expected to be a historic storm and one of the strongest storms to hit our service territory,” he added.
Tampa Electric Company says on its website that “We’ve mobilized more than 5,000 utility workers and growing to assist with electric restoration after the storm.”
Duke Energy, another top utility in Florida, also says its crews “are ready to respond.
This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken Tuesday shows Hurricane Milton in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. (NOAA via AP)
The National Hurricane Center warned in a Wednesday morning advisory that “a large area of destructive storm surge, with highest inundations of 10 feet or greater, is expected along a portion of the west-central coast of the Florida Peninsula” when Hurricane Milton makes landfall later tonight.
“If you are in the Storm Surge Warning area, this is an extremely life-threatening situation, and you should evacuate as soon as possible if ordered by local officials,” it added.
The Category 5 hurricane, as of 5 a.m. ET, was centered about 300 miles southwest of Tampa with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph.
“Rainfall amounts of 6 to 12 inches, with localized totals up to 18 inches, are expected across central to northern portions of the Florida Peninsula through Thursday,” the NHC also says. “This rainfall brings the risk of catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with moderate to major river flooding.”
“Preparations to protect life and property, including being ready for long-duration power outages, should be rushed to completion,” the NHC added.
Storm chaser Mike Boylan of Mike's Weather Page has been following extreme weather since 2020, traveling to six different states to do so.
His latest chase, Hurricane Milton, hits close to his heart as he is a Florida native.
Boylan told Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview, "To me, it’s sad. You get kind of numb to the idea of living here that it can't happen. And Helene was a rude wake-up call. Maybe that really got people fired up in a weird way."
He is currently in the Tampa Bay region, in Oldsmar, and said Hurricane Helene recently devastated the area.
And Milton may be worse.
"I’ve got a debris pile behind me just littered with debris for miles and miles and miles. And it's the same scene up and down all of the Tampa Bay region," he said.
"This is one story of many, of course, that's unfolding. And it's just sad for these folks — they lost everything. Now they're dealing with possibly a higher storm surge," he said.
A NASA astronaut shared ominous pictures and a video timelapse of Hurricane Milton from space.
The massive storm has now regained Category 5 strength as it barrels toward Florida.
"We flew over Hurricane Milton about 90 minutes ago. Here is the view out the Dragon Endeavour window. Expect lots of images from this window as this is where I’m sleeping while we wait to undock and return to Earth," Matthew Dominick, a NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Commander shared in a post on X.
The video, posted on Tuesday morning, shows the spaceship gliding in space over the U.S. with Milton clearly visible.
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 during the next 36 hours.
Milton regained Category 5 strength Tuesday evening, a day after becoming among the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin.
The monster storm maintained that strength overnight into Wednesday, and forecasters say it will likely remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall Florida's west coast later on Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning.
"Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida," the NHC said Wednesday morning.
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.
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