Juan René Pérez left Tampa this Tuesday, around ten in the morning, and arrived in Miami after six in the afternoon. His mother told him that if he didn’t come home to Hialeah, she would go look for him herself. Pérez resides in one of the areas where there is an evacuation order due to the hurricane Milton. Normally, the trip to Miami takes about four hours by car by road, but almost nothing is normal right now, when it has only been two weeks of Heleneand the debris he left behind continues to be collected from the streets. Traffic jams due to the massive evacuation have almost paralyzed Florida highways, north and south from the Tampa Bay area. Many gas stations have been left out of stock and the desperation to get to safety, given the warnings and devastation of Helene Even visible, it is palpable.
Authorities have asked more than 5.5 million people to leave Florida’s west coast, in what would be the largest evacuation in Florida since the passage of Irma, in 2017. Forecasts warn that, somewhere between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, early Thursday morning, one of the most intense hurricanes that have been reported in the Atlantic, the Gulf and the Caribbean will make landfall. “I can say without dramatizing at all: if they decide to stay in one of those evacuation zones, they are going to die,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned this Monday in an interview with CNN, and her words were not overlooked.
Miltonwhich has returned to category 5 after having dropped to 4, is advancing through the Gulf of Mexico at 17 kilometers per hour and with maximum sustained winds of about 270 kilometers per hour; reported the National Hurricane Center, in its update at seven p.m. this Tuesday. “It is likely that there will be fluctuations in intensity while Milton “It is moving through the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but is expected to be a major and dangerous hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida on Wednesday night,” their statement said.
Meteorologist Noah Bergren, from FOX 35 Orlando, urged on his X account not to let our guard down in the face of such fluctuations. “I’ve been shouting about this in the air, yes, the category will go down, but let’s focus more on the impact right now. It’s misleading. Katrina and Wilma They also did this with a 5-4-3 and they were very important impacts. I could hit with a 3 or a 4, I have no idea which. But the wind field will expand significantly, impacting more people upon landfall.”
To help them understand his point, the scientist asked to think of an ice skater with his hands close to his body spinning very fast. “As you let your hands extend away from your body and slow down, that’s the wind field analogy here with Milton. Hurricane-force wind gusts will extend well beyond the Florida peninsula as it hits.”
“Evacuate today if you have been told to do so, if you are medically dependent on energy or live in a home that cannot sustain the force of hurricane force winds,” the Florida Division of Emergency Management published in X, noting that shelters exist open in areas with evacuation orders, in addition to free transportation to them in several counties. Likewise, the Florida Department of Highways has warned that it will use the right lane of the highways to escort gasoline tanks to supply points that have been left short of fuel.
FHP Troopers are working around the clock to escort fuel trucks along evacuation routes ahead of #Milton.
Floridians will see FHP utilizing the right lane on highways to bypass traffic and escort fuel carriers from seaports to gas stations. pic.twitter.com/awEFpwSHkC
— FLHSMV (@FLHSMV) October 8, 2024
“Catastrophic and life-threatening” flooding, intense rain, river overflows and sea penetration are some of the threats facing Florida residents in the coming days. The National Hurricane Center predicts storm surge with large, destructive waves, which could raise water levels by up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) in communities in the path of Miltonas well as rainfall amounts of six to 12 inches, with localized totals of up to 18 inches in the central and northern parts of the State. In addition, in the center and south of the territory, starting this Tuesday night and until early Thursday morning, it is even possible that some tornadoes will occur.
Of the 67 counties that make up Florida, 51 are in a state of emergency, and 28 are in a hurricane alert. The Governor of the State, Ron DeSantis, reported this Tuesday that there are 5,000 members of the National Guard on duty, which will increase to 8,000 very soon, and multiple resources deployed in possible impact sites to carry out search and rescue operations as soon as the phenomenon passes. climatic. “This is probably the largest mobilization of the National Guard before a storm in Florida history,” DeSantis said.
Tampa, a city with about 400,000 inhabitants, has not faced a hurricane of this magnitude since 1921. None of its inhabitants have seen anything similar to what it could cause there. Milton in the vast populated coastal areas that define the landscape.
Juan Carlos Martínez, who has lived in West Tampa for a decade, considers Mayor Jane Castor’s statements to be a bit “alarmist,” although, at the same time, necessary to take into account the danger. Martínez, however, maintains the hope that Milton modify your route. Unlike Juan René Pérez, he does not live in a neighborhood with a mandatory evacuation order, and he decided to stay. “I have my property here. Who, better than me, can take care of it and keep an eye on it, and take some action with something? It’s not about leaving and leaving everything. Also, my area is pretty safe, my house is pretty safe,” he said.
His house does not have impact windows, but the last 24 hours he spent boarding them up. Martínez trusts that this will be enough. “I come from Cuba, what Cuban doesn’t prepare.” With him will be his wife and his 22-year-old son. It has food, water, a power generator. When asked if he is scared, he answers no, not scared, but worried. “You take the measures and you can’t do anything else.”
Juan René Pérez also left his home secured as much as he could before traveling to Miami. Your home is not your property, but in there you have everything you own. In Hialeah, in his mother and father’s house, he remains attentive to the progress of Milton and with my mind on Tampa.
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