Hurricane Milton: Florida braces for storm’s landfall with huge evacuation under way
Florida is bracing for the landfall of the monster Hurricane Milton, as officials have pleaded with residents to follow evacuation orders and get out.
Given the potential destruction of Hurricane Milton, President Joe Biden postponed an upcoming trip to Germany and Angola in order to oversee preparations for, and the response to, the storm – in addition to the ongoing response to Hurricane Helene.
“This could be the worst storm to hit Florida in over a century, and God-willing it won’t be, but it’s looking like that right now,” Mr Biden said.
He added: “I just don’t think I can be out of the country at this time.”
Hurricane Milton: What we know so far
Florida governor Ron De Santis said: “Now is the time to execute your plan … but that time is running out.”
He added the entire Florida peninsula was under “some type of watch of warning” after declaring a state of emergency for areas affected.
Evacuation orders are in place for over one million people in Florida’s west-coast counties.
Mr De Santis added the state would activate 8,000 National Guard members and have truckloads of supplies and equipment ready in response.
A message is seen outside of an apartment in the Davis Islands community of Tampa, Florida. Pic: AP
Residents are in a race against time to clear up debris from Hurricane Helene, which officials warned could be turned into projectiles by Hurricane Milton. Pic: AP
Hurricane Milton heading toward Florida. Pic: Goes-East/Noaa/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
Workers board up a grocery store to protect it from Hurricane Milton, in Progreso, Mexico. Pic: AP
Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News: “You have to evacuate, it [Hurricane Milton] is not survivable.”
Such is the power of Hurricane Milton that, despite weakening slightly, it could land a once-in-a-century hit on Tampa and St Petersburg, engulfing the populous regions with possibly deadly storm surges.
“This is the real deal here with Milton,” Tampa mayor Jane Castor told a Monday news conference. “If you want to take on Mother Nature, she wins 100% of the time.”
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Weatherman tearful over ‘horrific’ hurricane
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Ms Castor was even more blunt.
She told the US outlet: “I can say without any dramatisation whatsoever: if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die.”
Pasco County is located on Florida’s west coast. Its director of emergency management Andrew Fossa echoed the warnings from other officials.
He said: “I hate to say it like this – Pasco County’s going to get a black eye from this one.
“We haven’t seen a storm like this in a lifetime. We’re running out of time.”
Amid the warnings from state officials, federal authorities are readying their response to the hurricane.
White House spokesperson Emilie Simons said the Biden administration has established two staging bases stocked with 20 million meals and 40 million litres of water and has nearly 900 staff members in the region.
A boarded-up store remains open for now ahead of Hurricane Milton. Pic: AP
A couple sits on the beach as Hurricane Milton advances past Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida.
Pic: Reuters
Roads clogged in face of 12ft storm surges
Hurricane Milton is expected to come close to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula en route to striking Florida’s densely populated coast late on Wednesday or early Thursday.
Once there, forecasters warned that Hurricane Milton could bring eight to 12ft (2.4-3.6m) storm surges, leading to further possible evacuation orders being issued along the Gulf coast.
The projected route of Hurricane Milton
A stream of vehicles headed north on Interstate 75, the main road on the west side of the peninsula, as residents followed evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, traffic clogged up the southbound lanes of the road for miles as others headed for the relative safety of Fort Lauderdale and Miami on the other side of the state.
Air travel fared no better as by Tuesday afternoon, almost 700 flights had been cancelled due to Hurricane Milton, with that figure expected to rise as more than 1,500 flights scheduled for Wednesday were also cancelled, according to flight tracking data provider FlightAware.
President Joe Biden speaks about the federal government response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton. Pic: Reuters
Florida’s Department of Corrections said it had evacuated 4,636 inmates ahead of Hurricane Milton as the National Hurricane Center warned that if people didn’t evacuate on Tuesday “there will likely not be enough time to wait to leave on Wednesday.”
200mph gusts
The storm took experts by surprise in how quickly it intensified.
In less than two days, Hurricane Milton went from just forming a tropical storm with winds of 40mph to a chart-busting Category 5 hurricane – before getting even stronger with gusts said to be over 200mph.
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To make matters worse, the huge storm comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene claimed over 200 lives, and left debris littered across the state – which Ms Castor said she fears Hurricane Milton could use “as a weapon” and turn into projectiles.
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Veteran hurricane scientists have called the US storm season so far one of the weirdest of their lives as it staggered through a recent quiet period before exploding into action with five hurricanes popping up between 26 September and 6 October.
US
Trump denies claim he wrote birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein – and says he has ordered release of more case files
Donald Trump has called an alleged letter he wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “fake” and said he will sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the paper that first published the claim.
In multiple posts on Truth Social, the US president accused The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of fabricating the letter that it claimed was written by Mr Trump as part of a collection of letters addressed to Epstein that his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell planned to give him as a birthday present in 2003.
According to documents seen by the WSJ, Mr Trump’s letter featured several lines of typewritten text framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman.
The paper said the letter concludes “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret”, and featured the signature “Donald”, allegedly drawn across the woman’s waist, meant to mimic the appearance of pubic hair.
Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019. Pic: AP
Responding to the WSJ’s claims, Mr Trump wrote: “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.
“I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT.”
He said earlier he would also sue the WSJ and News Corp, which Mr Murdoch owns. The WSJ is published by News Corp subsidiary company, Dow Jones & Co.
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From 16 July: Trump: Epstein case is ‘a boring story’
The Justice Department has not responded to the WSJ and the FBI declined to comment.
In a separate post, Mr Trump said he has asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release “any and all pertinent grand jury testimony” in the case of the paedophile financier who was found dead in his Manhattan cell in August 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.
The release of any documents, Mr Trump said, would be subject to approval by a court.
The justice department has previously said it had around 200 documents relating to Epstein and that the FBI had thousands more. It is unknown how much of this is grand jury testimony – which is typically kept secret under US law.
Ms Bondi responded to the president on X, writing: “President Trump-we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
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Elon Musk, who claimed last month that Mr Trump appears in the Epstein files, was surprisingly among the first to come to the president’s defence over the WSJ claims.
“It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say tbh,” the tech billionaire wrote on X, before going on to ask where the evidence against Epstein allegedly held by the FBI had gone.
The Trump administration has come under criticism after the president appeared to U-turn on his own promise to release more information about the Epstein case publicly.
In the run-up to the US election last year, Mr Trump drew on rumours and conspiracy theories that appeared to accuse the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in a child sex trafficking operation.
Ms Bondi fuelled these rumours in February by telling Fox News that the alleged Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review”.
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In the same month, the justice department released some government documents regarding the case, but there were no new revelations.
After a months-long review of additional evidence, the department earlier this month released a video meant to prove that Epstein killed himself, but said no other files related to the case would be made public.
The decision was criticised by many in Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, who Mr Trump later called “weaklings”.
Sky News has contacted the White House for further comment.
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