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US President Joe Biden urged people in the path of a hurricane barrelling towards Florida to evacuate their homes “now, now, now” as the catastrophic storm strengthened again on Tuesday afternoon.
Biden warned that the “devastating” Hurricane Milton, which was hurtling towards a highly populated stretch of the state’s west coast with winds of 165 miles per hour, could be one of the worst storms to hit Florida in more than a century.
Milton is on track to make landfall on Wednesday night after returning to category 5 strength, according to the National Hurricane Center, with storm surges of up to 15 feet predicted in some areas.
NHC forecasters warned that Milton had “the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida”.
As of Tuesday afternoon, millions of people living in 14 Florida counties were under mandatory evacuation order. Global risk advisory firm Guy Carpenter said Milton could cause the largest number of evacuations since Hurricane Irma in 2017, when 6.7mn people left their homes.
“This is literally catastrophic,” Tampa mayor Jane Castor said in an interview with CNN. “I can say this without any dramatisation whatsoever: if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die.”
Milton is the second major hurricane to hit the US in a fortnight after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc across several south-eastern states, killing more than 225 people and destroying roads across western North Carolina. Verisk, a data analytics group, said on Tuesday that the insurance industry could face losses from Helene of up to $11bn.
Biden postponed an overseas trip to Germany and Angola to remain in Washington and oversee preparations for the storm, and manage the recovery efforts linked to Hurricane Helene.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made a series of false claims in the wake of Helene, accusing the government of withholding aid from Republican disaster victims. Vice-president Kamala Harris on Monday called Trump “extraordinarily irresponsible” for spreading misinformation.
The White House said on Tuesday that Biden had called the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and had spoken to Castor the previous evening to discuss plans, and had been briefed by NWS director Ken Graham on the expected effects of the storm on Florida.
DeSantis said on Fox News on Tuesday morning that the prospect of “another monster storm” hitting the state was “not easy”.
“It’s been very taxing on our citizens to have to go through this just as you’re starting to pick up the pieces from Helene,” he said.
DeSantis warned that debris from Hurricane Helene “could become projectiles” and said he had ordered all state agencies with trucks available to help clean up destruction.
The prospect of two big hurricanes hitting the US in quick succession threatens to strain federal emergency responses and the US economy. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president Raphael Bostic told an event in Atlanta on Tuesday that the higher frequency of hurricanes could disrupt supply chains.
Chevron, the US oil major, said it had shut down oil production at the Blind Faith platform in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of the hurricane and removed its staff from the site.
Airports in Tampa and Orlando said they would suspend operations, and theme parks including Walt Disney World were among the businesses announcing closure plans.
Last week, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not have enough funding to make it through this year’s hurricane season.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters while en route to South Carolina following Hurricane Helene. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting — we do not have the funds, FEMA does not have the funds, to make it through the season.”
Lawmakers last month replenished FEMA’s disaster funding, providing up to $20bn as part of a short-term funding bill aimed at averting another government shutdown. In a letter to Congress last week, Biden warned that the agency’s disaster relief fund faced a shortfall at the end of the year.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
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