ph dream Dire Warnings for Storm-Weary Floridians as Hurricane Milton Approaches
Weary Floridians steeled themselves on Monday for a second major hurricane in two weeks, wrestling with anxiety about whether to leave their homes and where the storm might go as Hurricane Milton took aim at much of the state’s battered Gulf Coast.
The vulnerable Tampa Bay region, a metropolitan area that is home to more than three million people, faced mass evacuations of low-lying communities that were flooded only days ago by the devastating storm surge of Hurricane Helene. Evacuation orders extended south along the coast, where Hurricane Ian made landfall in 2022, killing about 150 people.
Milton, which formed as a tropical storm on Saturday afternoon, rapidly intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane over a few hours on Monday morning. Forecasters expect it to weaken somewhat before making landfall somewhere between Naples and Cedar Key, with possible storm surge of up to 12 feet.
Though Floridians were suffering from hurricane fatigue, the fresh memories of Helene, Ian and Hurricane Idalia, which struck the Gulf Coast last year, spurred some people to evacuate for Milton even if they had not done so before.
“Our house was just flooded, and we just started to put it back together again,” Jeff Monsein, 65, said as he boarded up his home in Davis Islands near downtown Tampa on Monday morning. His family did not think it would get hit by a hurricane, much less two.
Mr. Monsein did not evacuate for Helene but said he would for Milton. His 85-year-old mother has Stage 4 cancer and her condominium flooded during Helene, so she moved in with him, he said. In all, two homes and four cars were damaged.
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