Keep calm and be prepared for the storm
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The winds grew stronger as the afternoon wore on, blowing tree branches and leaves onto quiet roads. By the time the sun came up, almost no stores stayed open, as well as many people in Florida decided to leave and seek refuge at hotels or shelters further inland. Through Tuesday, many residents clogged highways choosing to flee further north or south, out of the main path of Milton.
“Milton has the possibility to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida,” the National Hurricane Center stated on Wednesday.
While the storm has weakened considerably, various storm surge, hurricane and tropical storm advisories were still in effect for the area. There was a storm surge warning in effect for the state’s west coast, from Bonita Beach northward to Middle of Longboat Key and from the Sebastian Inlet in the state to Altamaha Sound in Georgia.
“There’s going to be impacts far beyond wherever the eye of the storm is,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “You should be executing your plan now. If you’re going to get out, get out now. You have time today. Time will be running out very shortly if you wait any longer.”
But one 90-year-old resident of Englewood, Fla., a little over 30 miles south of Sarasota, was deciding at the last minute at a gas station whether to head further inland, north or south away from Milton.
Irving LaLonde has a house by the bay. He said the weather had been nice. “And then I turned on the television this morning, and oh my God, they said, ‘Get out of Englewood.’ ” He was unsure of which direction to take.
In spite of the very real threat to their homes, belongings and livelihoods, many Floridians taking shelter in hotels or evacuation centers in Sarasota remained in good spirits amid the bad weather. They got comfortable, chatted with other evacuees, played card games, drank wine and beer and prepared to ride out the worst of the storm with friends, families and pets.
Alan Staniforth, who evacuated with his family from his home in Longboat Key on Tuesday, said that life is more important than possessions, so you can always rebuild.
The Staniforth family tried to put furniture and other possessions on higher ground before fleeing. He told NPR that his home, renovated four years ago, won’t be as good after the storm.
“We’ll probably spend the next six to 12 months rebuilding,” he said. “It’s going to be a long road to recovery here for everybody, not just us. The risk of living down close to the ocean in Florida is what you take. It is a great lifestyle but comes with some risk.
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“I guess a lot of people are forward-thinking about what happens afterwards, and obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen, but you got to assume the worst and hope for the best,” Staniforth said. Don’t freak out, be pragmatic about it. We are where we are right now because it’s not going to help anyone when you freak out.
Member stations across the NPR Network in Florida are covering the local impact of Hurricane Milton. For those that might lose power or cell service, note the frequency of your local station for your emergency radio needs.
She says that if the dunes are high enough, they will prevent the flooding from storm surge. If the systems are not raised enough to prevent the flooding, they can leave behind waves and protect the infrastructure behind them.
Tampa Bay’s shallow seabed and built-up coastline make it particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. A 2015 report from disaster modelers Karen Clarke & Co ranked the Tampa–St. Petersburg area as the most vulnerable city to storm surge flooding in the US. Despite multiple reports echoing the area’s vulnerability to storm surges, plans to beef up the area’s defenses have been delayed and in some cases vetoed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis. The area is going to have to fight an storm that is most dangerous in a century.
Flooding and winds damaged thousands of homes, according to member station WUSF. At least 12 people near Tampa in Pinellas County died because of Helene.
In the wake of Tropical Storm Cindy, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that efforts will continue to remove debris in the area until it is no longer safe.
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She says that roads and buildings can create areas of water flow convergence. The roads don’t give much resistance to the flow, and storm surge will be able to make it inland.
The land lining a bay is pushed against by the wind. “The land acts as a barrier to the water flow, and consequently the water accumulates in the coast.”
The crescent-like shape of Tampa Bay, which is 400 square miles, and the intensity and track of the hurricane also affect how intense the surge will be, according to Maitane Olabarrieta, a professor of coastal oceanography at the University of Florida and associate director of the university’s Center for Coastal Solutions.
“The wide continental shelf with shallow water allows storms like Helene and Milton to create very large storm surges,” Thomas Wahl, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Central Florida who studies flood-prone areas, tells NPR.
There is a lot of the region at low elevation that is prone to flooding. That’s exacerbated by rising sea levels. Since 1946, water levels in Tampa Bay have increased 7.8 inches and the region could experience sea levels rise another 2 to 8.5 feet by 2100, according to a 2019 analysis by the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel.
Tampa Bay is surrounded by the metropolitan areas of Tampa, as well as Clearwater and St. Petersburg — in the state’s most densely populated county, Pinellas. Barrier islands line its Gulf coast.
The project to make a wastewater treatment facility more robust to severe weather events is one that was vetoed in Hillsborough Country over the bay from Pinellas.
Authorities said assessing the toll from Milton would have to wait for the daylight hours. The roof of the home of the Major League Baseball’sTampa Bay Rays was torn to shreds, making it look like the mostdestructive power in the universe was visible. Pieces of the fiberglass roof could be seen flapping in the wind. Just blocks away from there, a construction site crane collapsed.
A growing number of homes and businesses were without power. By early Thursday morning, the number of customers without power had surpassed 3 million, according to poweroutage.us, with the highest number of outages reported in the western part of the state, including Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota.
Hurricane Milton has weakened into a tropical storm, with its winds diminishing to 35 kmph, after making landfall on Florida’s eastern coast on Tuesday. The US National Hurricane Center said that Milton is “likely to be a significant hurricane” with winds up to 93 kmph. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in the state.