Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

More than 12 mil­lion peo­ple in the state of Flori­da are fac­ing the threat of tor­na­does along with hail and wind, the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice has said.

In ad­di­tion, the city of Tam­pa is of­fi­cial­ly closed through Fri­day, of­fi­cials said on the city’s web­site.

Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton is churn­ing to­ward Flori­da’s west coast. The Tam­pa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 mil­lion peo­ple, is fac­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wide­spread de­struc­tion af­ter avoid­ing di­rect hits from ma­jor hur­ri­canes for more than a cen­tu­ry.

The fol­low­ing are the lat­est up­dates from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press over the past cou­ple of hours…

Na­tion­al Weath­er ser­vice says much of the south­ern part of Flori­da is un­der a tor­na­do watch

By PATRICK WHIT­TLE

More than 12 mil­lion peo­ple in the state faced threat of tor­na­does along with hail and wind, the ser­vice said.

The city of Tam­pa is of­fi­cial­ly closed through Fri­day, of­fi­cials said on the city’s web­site.

Large swaths of Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty were un­der manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion or­ders. The city of Tam­pa was pro­vid­ing re­al-time flood­ing in­for­ma­tion via its web­site. How­ev­er, city of­fi­cials said it was past time for res­i­dents to evac­u­ate or stay home.

“Stay home to­day. By this time, you should be ei­ther evac­u­at­ed or hun­ker­ing down,” the city said in a post X on Wednes­day morn­ing.

The city was still work­ing to gath­er de­bris from Hur­ri­cane He­lene in ad­vance of Mil­ton’s ar­rival.

An ap­par­ent tor­na­do touched down in a Fort My­ers neigh­bour­hood near Page Field Air­port

By TER­RY SPENCER, MAR­TA LA­VANDI­ER

It hap­pened Wednes­day af­ter­noon, well in ad­vance of Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton’s ar­rival.

Tree limbs were snapped off, the canopy from a gas sta­tion was torn to shreds and pieces of it lit­tered the road, and ice ma­chine was thrown about 30 feet (9 me­ters).

The neigh­bour­hood has branch­es from trees strewn across the road. The area re­mains in a tor­na­do watch through­out the day.

Lan­guage bar­ri­ers and lack of mon­ey is a mat­ter of life and death with Mil­ton ap­proach­ing

By GISELA SA­LOMON

Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton is ex­pect­ed to un­leash its great­est force over hun­dreds of thou­sands of im­mi­grants who don’t speak Eng­lish, most of them Latin Amer­i­cans har­vest­ing or­anges and toma­toes in the fields along Flori­da’s I-4 cor­ri­dor, wash­ing dish­es in restau­rants, clean­ing ho­tel rooms and work­ing con­struc­tion.

For the Span­ish speak­ers and a small­er num­ber of African refugees, new lives in the U.S. were al­ready a dai­ly strug­gle be­cause of the lan­guage bar­ri­er and lack of re­sources.

Mil­ton has turned those ob­sta­cles in­to a mat­ter of life and death.

Flori­da is home to at least 4.8 mil­lion im­mi­grants, ac­cord­ing to the Pew Re­search Cen­ter. Af­ter Mi­a­mi, Or­lan­do and Tam­pa are the met­ro­pol­i­tan ar­eas with the high­est num­ber of im­mi­grants, the ma­jor­i­ty com­ing from Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries such as Mex­i­co and Venezuela.

Im­mi­gra­tion ad­vo­cates and con­sulate of­fi­cials have been reach­ing out to them in Tam­pa, Or­lan­do and cen­tral Flori­da towns to help with evac­u­a­tion plans and oth­er­wise pre­pare. They’re shar­ing in­for­ma­tion in Span­ish, French and African lan­guages and mak­ing calls, send­ing text mes­sages and shar­ing so­cial me­dia posts with in­for­ma­tion about shel­ters, evac­u­a­tions and places to pick up sand­bags, food, wa­ter, shel­ters and gaso­line.

Four ma­jor bridges in the Tam­pa Bay area, in­clud­ing the fa­mous Sun­shine Sky­way Bridge, have closed

By CURT AN­DER­SON

The Sky­way spans the mouth of Tam­pa Bay and links Pinel­las and Man­a­tee coun­ties, car­ry­ing In­ter­state 275. It’s of­ten closed when winds from any source reach a cer­tain thresh­old.

The oth­er three bridges cross Tam­pa Bay, link­ing Tam­pa with cities such as Clear­wa­ter and St. Pe­ters­burg. Those are the Howard Fran­k­land, which al­so car­ries I-275, the Gandy and the Court­ney Camp­bell Cause­way.

Mil­ton could cost in­sur­ers more than He­lene

By PAUL HARLOFF

Mil­ton could be the first hur­ri­cane in more than 100 years to di­rect­ly hit the Tam­pa Bay area, home to more than 3 mil­lion peo­ple.

In­sured loss­es could reach in the tens of bil­lions of dol­lars at least, with the po­ten­tial for more than $75 bil­lion in loss­es if the storm di­rect­ly hits Tam­pa as a Cat­e­go­ry 3 or stronger storm, ac­cord­ing to an es­ti­mate from BMO Cap­i­tal Mar­kets.

Mil­ton will be mak­ing land­fall in the wake of Hur­ri­cane He­lene, which wreaked hav­oc across Flori­da, Geor­gia, Ten­nessee and the Car­oli­nas. He­lene hit a much less-pop­u­lat­ed area in the re­gion. In­land ar­eas at high­er el­e­va­tions, es­pe­cial­ly in west­ern North Car­oli­na, faced cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing and many of home­own­ers lacked flood in­sur­ance. That will lim­it the num­ber of claims to be paid out.

The rat­ings agency Moody’s es­ti­mates in­sured loss­es from He­lene could reach up to $14 bil­lion. Flood in­sur­ance is typ­i­cal­ly ex­clud­ed from most home­own­ers’ poli­cies and the U.S. gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­ters most of the na­tion’s flood in­sur­ance. Moody’s es­ti­mates the Na­tion­al Flood In­sur­ance Pro­gram’s loss­es from He­lene could reach $2 bil­lion.

Hur­ri­cane Ka­t­ri­na, which slammed in­to New Or­leans and the sur­round­ing Gulf Coast in 2005, was the costli­est storm to ever hit the U.S. In­sured loss­es mea­sured $102 bil­lion, af­ter ad­just­ing for in­fla­tion, ac­cord­ing to the In­sur­ance In­for­ma­tion In­sti­tute. In­sured loss­es from the Cat­e­go­ry 4 Hur­ri­cane Ian, which hit the West Coast of Flori­da in Sep­tem­ber 2022, were es­ti­mat­ed in ex­cess of $50 bil­lion.

A cur­few will be­gin Wednes­day night in Char­lotte Coun­ty

By COREY WILLIAMS

A 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. cur­few has been en­act­ed in Char­lotte Coun­ty, along south­west­ern Flori­da’s Gulf Coast, of­fi­cials said on the coun­ty’s web­page.

The cur­few be­gins Wednes­day night, is in place un­til fur­ther no­tice and pro­hibits the sale of al­co­hol in the coun­ty be­tween 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. un­til the cur­few is lift­ed. Vi­o­lat­ing the cur­few is a mis­de­meanour.

“Al­though I rec­og­nize the frus­tra­tions that come with en­act­ing a cur­few, this is a means of pro­tect­ing the peo­ple and prop­er­ty of Char­lotte Coun­ty dur­ing and fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton,” Sher­iff Bill Prum­mell said. “As soon as it is safe, I will rec­om­mend the or­der be re­scind­ed. Un­til that time, the on­ly peo­ple who should be out on the road­ways dur­ing those hours are es­sen­tial work­ers as they strive to as­sess dam­age and pro­vide as­sis­tance to those in need and peo­ple trav­el­ing to and from work.”

The cur­few will be strict­ly en­forced in Pun­ta Gor­da, Po­lice Chief Pam Smith added.

“This cur­few will al­low emer­gency re­spon­ders to fo­cus on post-storm res­cue and re­cov­ery ef­forts,” Smith said.

Surge from Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton start­ing to ap­pear in Cape Coral

By TER­RY SPENCER

Just af­ter noon Wednes­day, surge was al­ready start­ing to ap­pear along the har­bor in Cape Coral, at the mouth of the Caloosa­hatch­ee Riv­er.

The wa­ter had moved well up the beach and was near­ing the park­ing lot. A pier was with­in a foot of be­ing sub­merged.

Heavy rains from bands as­so­ci­at­ed with Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton were bring­ing heavy rain and wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph).

In Lee Coun­ty, the pub­lic safe­ty di­rec­tor says the time to evac­u­ate has passed

By KEN MILLER

In Lee Coun­ty, which in­cludes Fort My­ers about 95 miles (153 kilo­me­tres) south­east of Tam­pa, Pub­lic Safe­ty Di­rec­tor Ben Abes said Wednes­day that the coun­ty’s law en­force­ment, fire and emer­gency med­ical ser­vices will not re­spond to calls be­gin­ning lat­er Wednes­day when the weath­er wors­ens.

“Our area hos­pi­tals may al­so lock down, which would pre­vent ac­cess for ... am­bu­lances,” Abes said.

Abes said trop­i­cal storm force winds were com­ing ashore and the time to evac­u­ate has passed.

“It is not safe to be out, and it is not safe to re­turn to your home if you have evac­u­at­ed,” Abes said. “The time to shel­ter in place is now.”

Abes said the coun­ty’s 13 shel­ters are hous­ing more than 6,700 peo­ple.

St. Pe­ters­burg may­or says to pre­pare for a long re­cov­ery af­ter Mil­ton hits

By BREN­DAN FAR­RING­TON

St. Pe­ters­burg of­fi­cials warned res­i­dents Wednes­day af­ter­noon that re­gard­less of where the storm hits, the city should pre­pare for ex­tend­ed pow­er out­ages and the pos­si­ble shut­down of its sew­er­age sys­tem.

May­or Ken Welch said res­i­dents should brace for a long re­cov­ery.

“This is the re­al­i­ty of a di­rect hit from a pow­er­ful hur­ri­cane in our area. This is not a storm that we will re­cov­er from quick­ly. We have a long road ahead of us, but we will re­cov­er and we will re­build,” Welch said. “But for the next sev­er­al hours, our fo­cus is to keep every­one safe, and we can do that.”

Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris warns against jack­ing up prices on peo­ple deal­ing with back-to-back hur­ri­canes

By NAN­CY BENAC

“Those evac­u­at­ing be­fore Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton or re­cov­er­ing from Hur­ri­cane He­lene should not be sub­ject to il­le­gal price goug­ing or fraud – at the pump, air­port, or ho­tel counter,” she said in a state­ment Wednes­day.

Har­ris said the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is track­ing al­le­ga­tions and “will hold those tak­ing ad­van­tage of the sit­u­a­tion ac­count­able.”

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden made a sim­i­lar de­mand Tues­day.

“I’m call­ing on the air­lines and oth­er com­pa­nies to pro­vide as much ser­vice as pos­si­ble to ac­com­mo­date evac­u­a­tions and not to en­gage in price goug­ing, to just do it on the lev­el,” he said at the White House.

Flori­da Gov. Ron De­San­tis lashed out at peo­ple who spread false in­for­ma­tion on­line

By JEFF MAR­TIN

At a Wednes­day brief­ing, De­San­tis re­spond­ed to a ques­tion about so­cial me­dia mes­sages false­ly sug­gest­ing fed­er­al emer­gency of­fi­cials aren’t go­ing to let res­i­dents back in­to their homes af­ter Hur­ri­cane Mil­ton strikes.

“We live in an era where if you put out crap on­line, you can get a lot of peo­ple to share it and you can mon­e­tize that. That’s just the way it is,” De­San­tis said.

“If you’re hear­ing things — some­thing that’s just out­ra­geous — just know, in the state of Flori­da none of that stuff would ever fly,” he said.

“FE­MA is not lead­ing this show, we are lead­ing this show here in the state of Flori­da. We’re mar­shalling what­ev­er as­sets are avail­able to us, we’re lever­ag­ing that.”

“There’s not go­ing to be any­thing where FE­MA is ever go­ing to be able to keep you from your home,” he said.

“Be care­ful about the non­sense that gets cir­cu­lat­ed, and just know that the more tit­il­lat­ing it is, the more like­ly some­body is mak­ing mon­ey off it,” he added. “And they don’t re­al­ly give a damn about the well-be­ing and safe­ty of the peo­ple that are ac­tu­al­ly in the eye of this storm, it’s all just try­ing to mon­e­tize what they’re do­ing.”