23 Tweets About The Dangers Of Hurricane Milton That’s Likely To Hit Florida
by Ugnė Bulotaitė, Rūta Zumbrickaitė · Bored PandaADVERTISEMENT
Recently, the United States seemingly can't get a break from natural disasters. Just a short time ago, the tragical hurricane Helene hit the country and now a new hurricane is on its way.
In 24 hours Hurricane Milton was upgraded from tropical storm to Category 5 hurricane and now is expected to hit Florida either on Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. Experts online are sharing facts about how scary this natural disaster is and are urging people to evacuate as soon as possible.
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At the end of September of this year, Hurricane Helene was happening in the country, more specifically the Southeastern part of it.
Helene caused catastrophic many tornadoes and rainfall-triggered flooding, particularly in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia. Over 200 lives were lost due to it.
It was the strongest hurricane on record to strike the Big Bend region of Florida, the deadliest Atlantic Hurricane Maria (in 2017,) and the deadliest to strike the mainland US since Hurricane Katrina (in 2005.)
Now, another natural disaster is happening in the United States. Now, it’s called Hurricane Milton and it’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico.
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On October 4th, 2024 National Hurricane Center posted on their Twitter (X) that they’re monitoring the area in the Gulf Of Mexico and it has a medium chance to develop in the next 7 days. The next day they were slowly reporting on the tropical storm that was dubbed as Milton. Then, on October 6th they posted that Florida residents should prepare for it, replenish their supplies, and don’t forget their pets.
A bit later that same day Milton was upgraded to be a hurricane and was reported to intensity rapidly. The next day, October 7th, the account retweeted NHC Storm Surge’s tweet about the increasing risk of Milton for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning Tuesday night or early Wednesday.
Then, every couple of hours or so there have been updates about Milton intensifying even further. It was upgraded to Category 3 hurricane, then 4 and finally 5.
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The Category 5 hurricane is the highest the natural disaster can be. It means that winds are greater than 155 mph, while the storm surge is greater than 18 feet (around 5.48 meters) above normal tide. This requires massive evacuation of residential areas on low ground within 5 (around 8km) to 10 miles (around 16km) of shore.
Storm chaser Colin McCarthy said that “Hurricane Milton will go down in history” as it went from tropical storm to category 5 hurricane in only 24 hours. Also, meteorologist Dylan Federico pointed out that Milton is the second fastest hurricane on record to go from Category 1 to Category 5 in the Atlantic Basin.
If it stays on the expected course it’s going to be the most powerful hurricane to hit Tampa Bay in over 100 years.
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So, it’s no surprise that many people are trying to evacuate the places that are on Milton's course. A steady stream of vehicles headed north toward the Florida Panhandle. Traffic is clogged on the southbound lanes of the highway as some residents are heading for the relatively safe Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
By Monday morning some of the gas stations in the Fort Myers and Tampa areas had already run out of gas.
At this point, since the hurricane is still active, more news will follow. If you're in or near the potentially affected areas, please evacuate to safety.
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