Millions of people are without power in Florida

Milton’s Hurricane, a Florida Hurricane, Revisited: “It’s Time to Get Out of Englewood,” said Alan Staniforth

The people of Florida are running out of time to leave because of a storm that is expected to hit the coast as early as Wednesday night.

Milton became a hurricane on Sunday after its wind speeds increased over very warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Milton’s arrival comes just under two weeks after Hurricane Helene brought catastrophic levels of storm surge, rain and strong winds to Florida.

The storm has weakened considerably, but storm surge, Hurricane and Tropical storm advisories remained in place for the area. A storm surge warning remained for the state’s west coast, from Bonita Beach northward to Middle of Longboat Key, including Charlotte Harbor, and from the Sebastian Inlet in the state to Altamaha Sound in Georgia, including the St. Johns River, the NHC said.

“There’s going to be impacts far beyond wherever the eye of the storm is,” DeSantis said Tuesday. You ought to be executing your plan now. If you’re going to leave, leave now. You have plenty of time today. Time will be running out very shortly if you wait any longer.”

One 90-year-old man in Englewood, Fla., a little over 30 miles south of Sarasota, was deciding at the last minute at a gas station whether to go to the north or the south.

Irving LaLonde, said he has a house right by the bay. He said that the weather has been nice. “And then I turned on the television this morning, and oh my God, they said, ‘Get out of Englewood.’ ” And he took off, still unsure of which direction to go.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management encouraged residents to shelter in place and “be vigilant,” as floods, tornadoes and high winds were predicted.

“Obviously life is more important than possessions, so you can always rebuild and recreate what you had,” said Alan Staniforth, a sailing instructor, who evacuated to the Westin Sarasota on Tuesday with his family from his Longboat Key home.

Before fleeing, the Staniforth family tried to fortify their house and put furniture and other possessions on higher ground. He told NPR he thought his home wouldn’t work after it was renovated four years ago.

He said they would probably spend the next six to 12 months rebuilding. “It’s going to be a long road to recovery here for everybody, not just us. Living close to the ocean in Florida can pose a risk. It’s a good lifestyle, but it comes with risk.

The Impact of Hurricane Milton on Florida’s Watershed and Structural Systems: NPR Station Frequencies and Emergency Management Planned

Staniforth said, “We don’t know what happens afterwards, but you have to assume the worst and hope for the best.” “But be pragmatic about it, and not freak out. That’s where we are right now, because freaking out isn’t going to help anyone.

NPR stations across Florida are covering the impact of Hurricane Milton. For those that might lose power or cell service, it’s a good idea to know the frequencies of your local station.

“If the dunes are high enough, they might prevent the flooding from storm surge,” she says. “If they are not high enough to prevent the flooding, these systems can dissipate at least the waves, and protect the ecosystems and infrastructure behind them.”

Tampa Bay’s shallow seabed and built-up coastline make it particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. The most vulnerable city to storm surge flooding in the US in 2015 was the Tampa–St. Pete area. 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. Now the area will have to face the most dangerous storm in a century with what in many cases are aging storm defenses.

According to member station WUSF, floods and winds damaged thousands of homes. At least 12 people near Tampa in Pinellas County died because of Helene.

In Pinellas County, more than 1,200 truckloads of debris have been removed from barrier islands, and Governor Ron DeSantis said on Tuesday that work would continue until it was no longer safe.

Hurricane Milton’s Destroying Power: A Case Study of Key Tampa Bay Region, Pinellas, Florida, and the Tampa Bay Area

“Roads and buildings can funnel the flow, creating areas of water flow convergence,” she says. The roads provide little resistance to the flow, and storm surge may be able to come inland more easily.

The wind pushes the water against the land lining a bay, she explains. The land blocks the water flow and causes the water to accumulate on the coast.

Karen Clarke & Co estimated that the damage of a once-in-100-years hurricane to Tampa Bay could add up to $175 billion—more than almost any other hurricane in US history. Major parts of the transportation network of the area, including one causeway and two bridges over the bay, are vulnerable to extreme weather. The report called for enhancing drainage, raising roads, and protecting coastlines.

“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.

Despite these vulnerabilities, some projects to defend Tampa Bay against storm surges have been slow to be enacted. The Tampa Bay Times reported that after Hurricane Idalia, there were not enough trained people to push out the flooding. The City of Clearwater decided to increase their utility fees to help pay for the upgrade to the draining system.

Clearwater and St. Peter are in the state’s most densely populated county, Pinellas. The barrier islands are on the Gulf coast.

The projects that were vetoed over the bay from Pinellas included a plan to make a wastewater treatment facility more robust to severe weather events and a project to install 3,500 feet of mangroves and oyster reefs.

Authorities said assessing the toll from Milton would have to wait for the daylight hours. But perhaps the most immediate visual expression of Milton’s destructive power was seen in St. Petersburg, where the roof of Tropicana Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, was torn to shreds, NPR member station WUSF reported. The fiberglass roof was seen flapping in the wind. A construction site crane collapsed blocks away.

A lot of homes and businesses were without power overnight. 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.