JEAN-MARC RAM­PER­SAD

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

The cen­tre of Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton is cur­rent­ly 240 kilo­me­tres south­west of Tam­pa, Flori­da, with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 215km/h, mak­ing it a Cat­e­go­ry 4 Hur­ri­cane.

Out­er rain bands al­ready have be­gun af­fect­ing Flori­da, with sev­er­al Tor­na­do Warn­ings be­ing is­sued this morn­ing, and at least one con­firmed touch­down in South Flori­da.

The eye is ex­pect­ed to make land­fall on Flori­da's west coast near Sara­so­ta as a slight­ly weak­ened—but still dead­ly—Cat­e­go­ry 3, pro­duc­ing up to 13 feet of storm surge.

As Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton makes its way to Flori­da, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne told Guardian Me­dia he is mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

“We are in con­stant con­tact with our Mis­sions in the USA, with par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on the T&T Con­sulate in Mi­a­mi,” he said. “They have been ad­vised to re­main in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with mem­bers of the T&T di­as­po­ra in­clud­ing via the var­i­ous di­as­po­ra as­so­ci­a­tions, and to ren­der fa­cil­i­ta­tion and sup­port as nec­es­sary in the cir­cum­stances.”

Min­is­ter Browne al­so ad­vised that the Mi­a­mi Con­sulate would be closed to­day, and like­ly to­mor­row as well, for safe­ty rea­sons.

How­ev­er, he promised that team mem­bers will re­main ac­tive and en­gaged.