Tuesday, October 8, 2024, 8:43 p.m.
While Florida is still recovering from the effects of ‘Helene’, Hurricane ‘Milton’ once again threatens the peninsula and is expected to arrive in the State during the next morning. US authorities are preparing the potential evacuation of more than six million residents in anticipation of strong winds, torrential rains and deadly flooding, according to local media. More than a million have already left their homes. It is a priori the worst hurricane in decades. “Monstrous,” meteorologists warn, unless some type of natural event miraculously slows it down before reaching Tampa. The population follows the recommendations. Florida’s exit highways appeared yesterday clogged by thousands of vehicles occupied by families seeking to get away from the danger zone. The traffic has continued at dawn.
The recent memory of ‘Helene’ fuels alarm among a population that feels the breath of possible new devastation. Thousands of storefronts and windows have been covered with wooden panels. Neighbors and firefighters distribute sandbags to stop the floods. The sports halls have been equipped with thousands of field beds. And thousands of citizens rushed to supermarkets yesterday in search of food, water, first aid kits, batteries and other emergency resources.
The president, Joe Biden, declared an emergency situation in the State of Florida and promised federal help to combat the effects of ‘Milton’. The president, who has delayed his trip to Germany and Angola, urged the population to evacuate “now, now, now”, since “it is a matter of life or death.” Biden fears that ‘Milton’ could be “the worst storm in Florida in a century.” The storm combines a unique mix of extreme winds and dangerous storm surges. The gusts could travel through Tampa at 200 kilometers per hour (last night it advanced through the Gulf of Mexico with gusts of 250 kilometers per hour) and the water level could rise this coming morning up to 4.5 meters in some coastal areas.
‘The hurricane has forced three airports to close and hundreds of flights have been canceled today and tomorrow as a preventive measure. Florida ports have also been closed and shipping was restricted off the South Carolina coast.
The phenomenon will make landfall somewhere on the west coast with a destructive potential greater than that of ‘Helene’, which recently hit the southern United States, causing at least 215 deaths in the south of the country. Emergency services are working to remove as much debris as possible from the previous hurricane, which poses a safety risk and increases the damage that ‘Milton’ may cause.
extreme danger
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States has reported that ‘Milton’ remains in category four since Monday. Meteorologists warn that Florida remains in “extreme danger” and the evacuation is expected to continue today in other areas, such as for the three million inhabitants of the Tampa metropolitan area, in the Gulf of Mexico. Anecdotally, those responsible for the famous Tampa Zoo began moving some of their animals to other locations while the rest, such as elephants, orangutans and rhinos, remained sheltered within zoo facilities built to withstand extreme storms.
In a clinic in Saint Petersburg, a doctor places wooden planks on the windows. He remembers the recent passing of ‘Helene’ and laments: “This is too much. It’s painful,” he adds to the AFP agency. «It is a fierce hurricane. “You have time to leave, so please do so if you are in danger areas,” urged Republican Ron DeSantis last night, governor of Florida, who has expanded the emergency to 51 of the 67 counties of the third most populous state in the country. Jane Castor, mayor of Tampa, was more emphatic: «’Helene’ was a wake-up call. This is literally catastrophic. “I can say this without exaggeration: if you choose to stay in one of the evacuation zones, you will die.”
‘Milton’ could bring rain of such intensity that it floods numerous urban areas. «These storms are bringing more water than ever. And water is what kills people,” warns the director of the Federal Natural Disaster Response Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell.
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Moment when the famous meteorologist @JohnMoralesTV known for always remaining calm during his reports, cries when reporting the current intensity of Hurricane Milton.
Morales also cried in his last newsletter before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017.… pic.twitter.com/EWpuCuSyjL
— Mollusk (@Moluskein) October 7, 2024
The brutal intensification of ‘Milton’ in the Gulf of Mexico has generated concern among meteorologists, especially veteran John ‘Toohey’ Morales. The voice of this Puerto Rican, one of the most prestigious weather men in the United States, broke as he offered an analysis of the atmospheric phenomenon that is already considered one of the largest in history. And then he started crying.
Their reaction is no wonder, in just a few hours the phenomenon has gone from being a category two hurricane to becoming a category four. Thus, its barometric pressure dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours. Morales attributes the great force of this storm to “global warming” and “climate change.”
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