The hurricane Milton returned to category 4 on Wednesday morning, before it made landfall in Florida during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, in what could be “the worst storm” to hit this peninsula “in a century” according to President Joe Biden.
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Milton is “a major and dangerous hurricane” downgraded to category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, after having been in category 5 Tuesday evening, warned the American National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Milton has weakened slightly over the Gulf of Mexico and now has winds of 249 km/h. It is therefore 3 km/h below the category 5 threshold.
Photo AFP
Tornado Warning in Florida
A tornado warning has also been issued for more than 12 million people in central and southern Florida until 9 p.m., including in Tampa, Miami, Cape Coral and Key West.
Fuel shortages
Nearly one in four gas stations in Florida were out of gas as of Wednesday morning, according to data from GasBuddy.
“As of 8 a.m., GasBuddy data shows 22.8% of Florida stations are running out of gas,” analyst Patrick De Haan wrote on X.
This means that 1,700 gas stations are affected by these gasoline shortages out of approximately 7,500 in the state.
As of 11 p.m. Tuesday, 21.6% of gas stations in Florida were running out of gas, particularly in areas facing evacuation orders, including Tampa and Fort Myers.
Florida on alert
The hurricane is moving from southwest to northeast in the Gulf of Mexico. Its passage on Tuesday off the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico, caused no casualties, only causing some material damage.
“The entire Florida peninsula is under some form of either 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.
Photo AFP
“You must evacuate now, it is a question of life and death,” the American president said to 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.
“Everyone is leaving”
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.
Temperatures in the North Atlantic have been continuously evolving for more than a year at record levels of heat, according to data from the American Meteorological Observatory (NOAA).
Photo AFP
According to a report released Wednesday by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group, the hurricane’s torrential rains and powerful winds Helene were made 10% more intense by climate change. Hurricane-sized storms Helene were previously predicted to occur once every 130 years, while today the probability is closer to once every 53 years, on average.
According to weather expert Michael Lowry, “if the worst forecasts materialize for the Tampa Bay region, coastal flooding caused by Milton could be double those observed two weeks ago during Hélène.
“Milton strengthened on Monday at a breakneck pace”, one of the “fastest ever observed in the Atlantic basin”, he added.
Photo Getty Images via AFP
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 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.
In Tampa, dozens of cars line up outside a sports center to collect sandbags to protect their homes from flooding.
John Gomez, 75, ignored authorities’ advice and traveled from Chicago to try to save a second home he owns in Florida. “I think it’s better to be here in case something happens,” he said.
“No empathy”
Emmanuel Parks, a 36-year-old pastor, says he is also preparing to leave Tampa and waiting for the passage of Milton in a hotel.
In Orlando, a large tourist city in central Florida, Disney announced the closure of its theme parks from 1 p.m. Wednesday.
The southeastern United States is barely recovering from the passage ofHelene at the end of September, a devastating hurricane caused considerable flooding and damage in half a dozen states and left at least 235 dead.
In the middle of the presidential campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump was quick to accuse the federal state, led by Democrats, of having done too little, too late, to provide assistance to the disaster victims.
The Republican had notably accused the Democrats of having “stolen money” from the federal natural disaster response agency (FEMA), “in order to be able to give it to their illegal immigrants”.
“Don’t you have any empathy for people’s suffering?” replied her Democratic rival in the November election, Kamala Harris, in an interview extract which was to be broadcast Tuesday evening.
