TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida is facing the threat of another major hurricane making landfall in the state, prompting state emergency officials to prepare for the evacuation of potentially more than 6 million residents as the state still recovers from its last direct hit.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday told reporters at the Florida Emergency Operations Center the state is now racing to clean up debris left by Hurricane Helene, which hit the state just 10 days ago. Tropical Storm Milton is expected to make landfall somewhere along the state’s western coast by midweek as a hurricane, the National Weather Service forecasted, bringing the threat of deadly coastal flooding, high winds, and torrential rainfall.
Milton is expected to strengthen into a hurricane before landfall, and the storm could bring coastal flooding that may leave Tampa Bay under 10 feet of water. Milton has the potential of pushing even more Gulf water onto the coast than Helene, which hit a rural stretch of the state’s Big Bend region in the north. Despite Helene making landfall hundreds of miles away, communities along the gulf coast on Florida’s peninsula were wrecked by significant flooding.
Milton’s flooding, however, will directly hit a much more heavily-populated part of the state as the storm moves east along Interstate 4 toward the Atlantic Ocean.