Hurricane Milton returns to maximum category, Florida on alert

Milton is “a major and dangerous hurricane” returned to category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the highest – after having been downgraded to category 4, warned the American National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Tuesday.

Winds up to 270 km/h

With winds of up to 270 km/h, “intensity fluctuations” are likely before the hurricane hits the west coast of Florida, he said in his latest bulletin. The hurricane is moving from southwest to northeast in the Gulf of Mexico. Its passage Tuesday off the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, caused no casualties, only causing some material damage.

“You must evacuate now, it’s a matter of life and death”

“The entire Florida peninsula is under either a form of watch or alert,” Ron DeSantis, governor of the southeastern US state, said on Tuesday. Milton could be “the worst storm in Florida in a century,” Joe Biden said on Tuesday, on the sidelines of a meeting at the White House on preparations. “You must evacuate now, it is a question of life and death,” the American president told residents of the third most populous state in the country.

His vice-president Kamala Harris followed suit on ABC. The Democratic presidential candidate in November asked residents to “take local officials seriously.” A sign of the seriousness of the situation, the White House announced that Joe Biden had decided not to go as planned at the end of the week to Germany and then to Angola.

“Milton strengthened on Monday at a breakneck pace”

Climate change makes rapid intensification of storms more likely and increases the risk of more powerful hurricanes by warming sea and ocean waters, scientists say.

According to weather expert Michael Lowry, “if the worst forecasts materialize for the Tampa Bay region, coastal flooding caused by Milton could be double that observed two weeks ago during Helen.” “Milton strengthened on Monday at a breakneck pace”, one of the “fastest ever observed in the Atlantic basin”, he added.

“Everyone is leaving”

Generators, food, water and tarps are being distributed across Florida and many residents plan to leave. In Tampa, dozens of cars lined up to collect sandbags to try to protect their homes from expected flooding.

“I fear that everything will be flooded,” confides Luis Santiago in the line. South of Tampa, in the city of Sarasota, Sam Lee stopped at a store before evacuating to an Airbnb inland with his wife and children. “Everyone leaves. I’m going to leave, not right away but probably later in the evening, just to be safe because I have children,” says the 43-year-old plumber. Emmanuel Parks, a 36-year-old pastor, says he is also preparing to leave Tampa and wait for Milton to stay in a hotel.