October 9 Hurricane Milton news

Our live coverage of Hurricane Milton has moved here.

Residents in Gulfport, Florida, are starting to see the “light at the end of the tunnel,” the mayor says as Hurricane Milton moves eastward.

Gulfport Mayor Sam Henderson told CNN’s Laura Coates early Thursday morning that the area has received an “incredible” amount of wind and rain.

“These are definitely the most significant winds that I’ve seen since I’ve been in Florida,” Henderson said.

There have been several emergency calls made in the city, according to the mayor, and crews have been out during the night handling those calls.

“The worst of it has passed us by, the winds are subsiding, we’re still getting substantial gusts, but we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

The mayor explained that most residents took Hurricane Debby and Hurricane Helene earlier this year as wake up calls and evacuated the area this time around.

Gulfport is about 5 miles southwest of St. Petersburg.

Wind-driven rain soaks a street in downtown Tampa, Florida, on October 9, 2024.

Hurricane Milton continues to bring very heavy rainfall across Florida, where certain areas have already seen well over a foot of rainfall.

Below are the notable rainfall totals in the state:

St. Petersburg’s 18.31 inches fell on Wednesday, which crushes the city’s previous daily rainfall total of 6.93 inches set on September 14, 2001.

Multiple locations have already seen several months’ worth of rainfall from Milton, and the rain is continuing.

Tampa’s October average is 2.34 inches, so the city has seen several months’ worth of rainfall so far. On Wednesday, the city saw 9.12 inches of rainfall, which is the third wettest day on record for the city.

Sarasota’s total also represents nearly three times their October average of 2.76 inches.

Even though the eye of the storm has passed St. Petersburg and is nearing Orlando, winds and rain are still dangerously strong in the city, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir said.

The Tampa Bay area has long been particularly vulnerable to flooding, with hundreds of at-risk buildings, he said, citing past investigations from the Tampa Bay Times.

What’s most “heartbreaking,” he said, was remembering when he and CNN’s Anderson Cooper both covered Hurricane Katrina when it devastated New Orleans in 2005. “That was a kind of once-in-100-years sort of lifetime storm,” he said. “But now these storms come and we don’t have time to absorb the last one.”

Parts of Florida and multiple other states along the Appalachians are still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which struck in late September and killed more than 230 people.

“But now that this has compounded, one after another, it’s really going to test resilience, (the) definition of disaster preparedness. These bigger storms, one after another, on an overheating planet, is sadly sort of a reality now,” he said.

In Punta Gorda, located around 20 miles northwest of Fort Myers, a resident captured on video an electrical transformer exploding and leaving the neighborhood without power.

The video shows roads completely flooded, looking more like rivers – then a bright blue light flashes several times in the distance. The resident shouts in apparent surprise, as parked cars begin sounding their alarms.

More than 2.4 million homes and businesses across Florida are now out of power, according to PowerOutage.us.

Watch the video here:

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Watch: Exploding transformers light up the sky in Punta Gorda

00:45 - Source: CNN

After Hurricane Milton made landfall earlier Wednesday night, it brought flash flooding to Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Venice, with wind speeds at around 100 mph at most of these places, according to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

By around 12:30 a.m. ET, the eye of the storm was moving inland and bringing heavy rains northeast to Orlando and Kissimmee. Meanwhile, the storm’s outer bands are sweeping east along with the storm, bringing strong winds to the Tampa Bay area.

As those winds blow back into the bay later tonight, the bay – where water was pushed out earlier tonight, leaving it at a lower water level – will fill back up, Myers said.

Several hours after it first arrived, Milton is now a Category 1 hurricane and is located about 40 miles south-southwest of Orlando.

Fatalities are reported after a tornado ripped through a mobile home retirement community in St. Lucie County on Florida’s eastern coast, the county sheriff told CNN.

Around 200 people from state and local agencies are searching for people trapped at the retirement community where the tornado “left a path of destruction,” he said. He added that search and rescue teams are facing 50 mph winds and rain as they look for those who may be stuck.

While the only fatalities appear to be in the retirement community, hundreds of homes were “completely totaled” by tornados across the county, Pearson said, including a 10,000 square-foot storage facility the Sheriff’s Department uses for emergency equipment.

This satellite image taken at 12:56 am ET on October 10, 2024 shows Hurricane Milton over Florida.

Hurricane Milton now has winds of 90 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane, according to an hourly update from the National Hurricane Center.

The storm is located about 40 miles south-southwest of Orlando and is moving east-northeast at 16 mph.

Orlando International Airport reported a gust of 74 mph around midnight, with sustained winds around 40 to 45 mph. The worst of the rain and winds are ongoing across Orlando.

Hurricane Milton’s core is about 60 miles south-southwest of Orlando and will soon make its closest pass near the city, where it is expected to knock out power to even more homes and businesses.

As of 12:40 a.m. Thursday, about 37,000 energy customers are without power in Orange County, which encompasses Orlando, according to PowerOutage.us.

The storm is still a Category 2 hurricane, though its maximum sustained winds have weakened slightly to 100 mph, according to an hourly update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). It is moving east-northeast at 16 mph.

A gust of 64 mph has been reported already in Orlando.

With over 400,000 customers without power in Hillsborough County, Florida, everything from the local water supply to law enforcement phone lines has been impacted.

Tampa Bay Water is asking residents in the Tampa area to immediately limit their water use because its regional water supply system and some facilities are experiencing power outages from Hurricane Milton.

“We’re running critical facilities on generator power but need your help to maintain water supply to Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties, and cities of New Port Richey and St. Petersburg,” Tampa Bay Water said in a post on X early Thursday morning.

Tampa Bay Water said it may not work to restore power until impacts from Milton subside, adding residents should limit water use until then.

Meanwhile, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said its non-emergency line is currently down due to a power outage caused by Milton. County residents should call 911 for emergencies while they work to get the line back up and running, the office said.

Orlando police and fire department personnel have been pulled from the roads due to heavy winds in the area as Milton approaches the city.

Crews have been told to shelter in place as winds have reached more than 40 mph, according to a post on X from the City of Orlando.

“When the wind speed decreases they will be able to respond to calls for service,” the city said, “Residents should continue to shelter in place.”

The center of the storm is about 40 miles south-southwest of Orlando.

A man records the storm as Hurricane Milton makes landfall, in Sarasota, Florida, U.S., October 9, 2024.

Officials in Sarasota are urging residents to continue to shelter inside as Hurricane Milton continues to make its way across the state.

Sarasota Vice Mayor Jen Ahearn-Koch told CNN’s Laura Coates early Thursday that there have been reports of flooding throughout the city, power outages and downed trees, but no significant damage calls have been made.

The vice mayor noted that once the eye of the storm passes, residents should continue to stay indoors as there are still several hours of strong winds and rain expected.

“The storm surge is something people should absolutely take seriously. We’re not out of the woods yet,” Ahearn-Koch said.

As of Thursday morning, the vice mayor said officials have not received any calls for rescues.

Once it is safe to do so, city crews will venture out to assess the damage and make sure it is safe for residents to do so, she said.

People watch water-flooded streets after Hurricane Milton made landfall in Fort Myers, Florida, on October 9, 2024.

Hurricane Milton made landfall at around 8:30 p.m. ET near Siesta Key, Florida, as a dangerous Category 3 storm before weakening to a Category 2 as it came ashore, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Power outages have soared as Milton charges inland –– doubling to more than 2 million homes and businesses without power in about three hours, according to PowerOutage.us

You can track Milton here.

Here’s what CNN is seeing around parts of Florida:

Bradenton: The storm briefly died down but it has now just been “really pouring up,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said.

Trees are uprooted and water from the river boardwalk is ”gushing in like the ocean,” he said.

The water is rising up around his knees, Cooper said, and his team will be moving to higher ground as they get waterlogged.

Sarasota: There’s been a fair amount of destruction and concerns loom as to what damage storm surges may bring to the downtown area, which is roughly 20 minutes away from where Milton made landfall.

“I keep thinking that the winds are going to die down and they just keep picking up,” CNN’s Randi Kaye said. “And also, here the temperature has dropped significantly.”

St. Petersburg: One of the four tower cranes on Central Avenue in the downtown area has collapsed and fell into a building, CNN’s Bill Weir said.

“Hopefully nobody is down here, and that it didn’t endanger anyone but it’s just an indication of the force of these winds,” he said. The city said in a statement no injuries have been reported.

Just a mile away from the harbor, the roof at MLB stadium Tropicana Field appears to have partially ripped off, video captured outside of the field by CNN affiliate WFTS.

Tampa: Trees are flowing past CNN’s Brian Todd and his crew as rain and debris slosh through the area.

“In Tampa Bay … we had to get out because the water started pounding against the seawall. The wind was extraordinarily powerful. We got rain that was just coming horizontally, slamming into us like pellets.”

Damaging winds from Hurricane Milton are continuing to spread inland as of midnight ET, according to the National Hurricane Center in its latest update.

The Tampa International Airport recorded a sustained wind of 58 mph and a gust of 93 mph, said the NHC.

The storm is now about 60 miles south-southwest of Orlando, and about 85 miles west-southwest of Cape Canaveral, with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph.

City officials in St. Petersburg, Florida, have shut off drinking water service citywide as they respond to a water main break.

“Residents and businesses should prepare for this temporary shutdown, which is expected to last until the necessary repairs can be completed,” the city said in a news release announcing the shutdown starting at midnight.

Water line repairs will begin once it’s safe for crews to be outdoors, the city said. Impacted areas may be experiencing low water pressure or service interruptions, according to the city.

The city has issued a boil water notice for all potable water used for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth. Once the system is restored, testing will be conducted to ensure water is safe before the notice is lifted, officials said.

A crane collapsed at a construction site in St. Petersburg, Florida, but no injuries have been reported at this time, the city said in a release.

It was not immediately clear the extent of the damage at the site.

The city urged people to continue sheltering in place and to avoid the area.

The National Weather Service in the Tampa Bay Area said there are reports of multiple cranes down in the region due to wind.

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Crane collapses at construction site in St. Petersburg

00:35 - Source: CNN

This screengrab taken from a video shows damage to the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on October 9, 2024.

The roof at Major League Baseball stadium Tropicana Field appears to have been partially ripped off as Hurricane Milton batters the area.

Video captured outside of the field by CNN affiliate WFTS shows a portion of the exposed roof as pieces flail in the wind.

The stadium lights from inside can be seen shining down on the field from the outside.

Tropicana Field is home to the MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays and is in the downtown area of St. Petersburg. CNN has reached out to the Rays and MLB for comment.

No injuries have been reported, and residents have been urged to avoid the area, according to a spokesperson for the city of St. Petersburg.

In preparation for Hurricane Milton, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced earlier this week that the field would be used as a 10,000-person base camp for debris cleanup operations and first-responders.

CNN’s Colin Jeffery and Jacob Lev contributed to this report.

Power outages have soared across Florida as Hurricane Milton charges inland – doubling to 2 million homes and businesses without power in about 3 hours, according to PowerOutage.us.

At about 9:30 p.m. ET, more than 1.1 million energy customers were in the dark. The number now sits at 2.02 million.

Near Siesta Key, where the storm made landfall, some counties are reporting more than 70% of energy customers without power, including in Sarasota, Manatee and Pinellas counties. Hardee County in central Florida is almost entirely in the dark with 97% of customers experiencing outages.

Outages are only expected to continue rising as Milton’s tropical storm-force winds extend about 255 miles from its center, sweeping a destructive path across central Florida.

The danger posed by Hurricane Milton’s over 100 mph winds has prompted officials in Tampa to halt emergency services until it’s safe for first responders to be on the ground, the city’s fire chief said.

“We had to cease all services because it’s too dangerous to put first responders out on the road,” Tampa Fire Chief Barbara Tripp told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “A lot of residents are without power. Milton is definitely visiting Tampa.”

Tripp noted the winds are also bringing gusts of 70 mph, and emergency units can safely operate in maximum 40 mph winds. At least 400,000 people in the city are without power, the fire chief said.

President Joe Biden was briefed after Milton made landfall earlier Wednesday night, according to a statement from the White House.

Read the statement:

Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Fort Myers, Florida, on Wednesday.

About three hours after making landfall, Hurricane Milton is bringing “devastating rains and damaging winds inland over portions of central Florida,” the National Hurricane Center said.

Flash flood emergencies are ongoing in the Tampa Bay area, where rain will continue for a few more hours.

Meanwhile, the heaviest rain and significant winds are also now moving into the Orlando area. Winds have been increasing in the Orlando area over the past few hours and are now gusting at 60 mph.

Milton continues to be a powerful Category 2 hurricane with winds of 105 mph, according to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center. The storm is now moving east-northeast at 16 mph and the center is located 75 miles southwest of Orlando.

Several feet of storm surge are lashing southwest Florida, especially south of where Milton’s center made landfall. That includes the cities of Venice, Fort Myers and Naples.

As Milton barrels farther inland, streets are submerged and winds are howling across the Tampa Bay area, with CNN reporters and storm chasers on the ground struggling to stay upright at times.

Meanwhile in Tampa, winds are so strong they are pushing vehicles around — and even sweeping debris and fallen branches up the street, said CNN’s Boris Sanchez. He described hearing trees creaking around him and the sky lighting up in flashes of blue and green — telltale signs of transformers blowing out. The water height reached the axle of a car nearby, he said.

The eye of the hurricane is moving east across central Florida — but it’s such a big storm that it has more than one eye wall, said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

This means that although the main eye of the storm might be moving away from parts of the coast, the secondary outer bands will still be traveling over the Tampa Bay area for hours yet, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.

Parts of Venice, Florida, are underwater as Hurricane Milton trucks across the state Wednesday night.

Video from storm chasers WxChasing shows roads completely flooded, with water levels almost all the way up to the street signs.

Venice is located about 18 miles from Sarasota where Milton made landfall.

All of that is storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico, according to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. Venice hasn’t had a lot of rainfall, only up to two inches, but the winds from the hurricane has pushed the sea up on to the shoreline, he said.

The water is now going over the barrier islands as Hurricane Milton makes landfall, Myers said, and will continue to rise for “many, many more hours” until the wind shifts.

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Storm surge floods Venice, Florida

01:07 - Source: CNN

The sky seen in Fort Myers on Wednesday.

Dangerous wind gusts over 100 mph have been observed Wednesday night around the Tampa area and elsewhere in west-central Florida near where Hurricane Milton made landfall.

Here’s where some of the highest winds have been reported:

Water levels are fluctuating significantly across Tampa Bay, Florida, as Hurricane Milton moves south of the bay and brings strong offshore winds.

In the northern part of Tampa Bay, reverse surge is pushing water offshore. The East Bay gauge — which is close to downtown Tampa — is now nearly 5 feet below normal.

In the southern portion of Tampa Bay, the Port Manatee gauge now has a surge of about 1.3 feet — an increase of more than 2 feet in the last 90 minutes.

Other gauges between East Bay and Port Manatee continue to show reverse surge. St. Petersburg and Old Port Tampa are each more than 2 feet below normal.

Varying wind direction is to blame for these significant differences. Northern Tampa Bay continues to have north or northeasterly winds, while southern portions of the bay are now experiencing northwesterly winds. This onshore push for southern areas of the bay will continue to increase and advance northward through the bay as the center of Milton moves farther east.

A hotel parking lot in Punta Gorda, Florida, has been flooded, and cars are partially submerged as rain continues to fall. The main town is also “completely underwater” with many buildings in the distance also flooded in the southwest Florida area.

A storm surge inundated the city of Punta Gorda on Wednesday night, shortly after Hurricane Milton made landfall.

Officials in Martin County, Florida, say several injuries have been reported and dozens of homes have been damaged as Hurricane Milton slams the state with strong winds, heavy rain and damaging tornadoes.

Some homes have been “severely” damaged, Martin County Fire Rescue said in a post on X Wednesday night. Both serious and minor injuries have also been reported, but no fatalities have been reported at this time.

Residents should continue to stay off roads, Martin County officials urged. The Martin County Sheriff’s Office has also implemented a countywide curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. “because of the significant damage caused by multiple tornadoes in Martin County, as well as deteriorating weather conditions expected through the night.”

The county is in the southeastern part of the state near St. Lucie County, where “multiple fatalities” occurred from a tornado outbreak earlier in the day.

Max Watts walks in a parking lot to check on a trailer parked outside the hotel where he is riding out Hurricane Milton with coworkers, in Tampa, on Wednesday.

A second flash flood emergency has been issued to the northeast of the previous emergency which was for Tampa, St. Petersburg, Riverview and Palmetto.

The new flash flood emergency lasts until 4 a.m. and includes Lakeland, Winter Haven and Wesley Chapel.

“Between 8 and 12 inches of rain have fallen. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly,” the National Weather Service said.

The Tampa and St. Petersburg emergency currently lasts until 2:30 a.m.

As Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday evening, Florida Sen. Rick Scott told CNN that he is worried about residents who chose not to evacuate, as well as the safety of first responders who might have to risk their lives to help them.

“People that didn’t evacuate that should’ve. We can’t take care of them now,” Scott told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”

Scott, who said he evacuated his home in Naples, Florida, told Collins he is also worried about significant power outages and damage in the wake of the storm.

He stressed the exceptional number of tornadoes that hit Florida on Wednesday.

“I talked to sheriffs and mayors where they had tornadoes. It was a scary, scary time. We had so many tornadoes,” he said. “I could feel it in people’s voices how concerned there were.”

CNN correspondents on the scene in Florida are witnessing the ferocity of Hurricane Milton as intense winds, rain and tornadoes rip through the state.

Here’s what CNN is seeing around parts of Florida:

St. Petersburg: Heavy rain is being blown violently in one direction. Five inches of rain fell in just one hour, and more is to come in the following hours, according to CNN’s Bill Weir.

“I just can’t I can’t help think about all those souls went through Helene who already had to deal with moldy drywall, and now this is going to cause so much heartache or so much stress across Florida.”

Bradenton: “This thing is really changing every couple of minutes. It’s very unpredictable,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported, adding power has been flickering on and off over the past hour. “This storm has changed a number of times.”

Sarasota: Winds remain extremely strong after the eye of Hurricane Milton passed through the area, with CNN’s Randi Kaye saying “It’s like a punch to the gut when it gets you.”

Tampa: “It is relentless. It is violent and it is dangerous out here,” CNN’s Brian Todd said as heavy rain lashes downtown. No one could be seen out in the neighborhood as “it’s simply too dangerous.”

“This road is starting to flood and … the flooding is going to get much worse because this water basically has nowhere to go.”

Watch more from Anderson Cooper as Hurricane Milton made landfall:

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Anderson Cooper shows what Milton’s storm surge looks like

01:52 - Source: CNN

Hurricane force winds roaring through the Tampa Bay area are gusting with such force it’s pushing water through one building’s wall.

St. Petersburg has seen 16 inches of rain since the storm began – half of which fell in just the last two hours, according to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

The center of the hurricane has now moved entirely onshore, Myers said.

Many of the tornadoes that had been along the I-95 and 101 highways on Florida’s Atlantic coast earlier are now gone, having moved offshore — but strong winds remain. In St. Petersburg, the latest wind gust recorded reached 84 mph.

The hurricane is now a Category 2, moving inland with flash flood emergencies in place for the Tampa Bay area, according to the National Hurricane Center.

There are “multiple fatalities” in St. Lucie County, Florida, after a tornado outbreak hit the area, CNN affiliate WPTV reports.

Sheriff Keith Pearson told the outlet multiple people were killed at Spanish Lakes Country Club, but the exact details are unclear.

CNN has reached out to the sheriff’s office and the county for information on deaths.

“The devastation is catastrophic,” communications director Erick Gill told CNN. Search and rescue teams are working to help impacted neighborhoods before winds are expected to pick up around 11:00 p.m. ET, and they are focused on getting those residents medical attention and temporary shelter, he added.

St. Lucie County is on Florida’s Atlantic coast, about 140 miles east of Sarasota, on the Gulf Coast.

The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told people to “stay put” as Hurricane Milton continues to move across the state.

Deanne Criswell told CNN that officials won’t know the full extent of the damage until the storm moves out of the state, but “life-threatening situations” continue.

She told Floridians that they need to stay where they are and shelter in place. Criswell emphasized that the threats are not over even after the National Hurricane Center said Milton is now a Category 2 hurricane.

“You just need to stay put and not go out into this. Try to make sure you’re as safe as possible,” Criswell said.

The FEMA administrator said that more than 70,000 people are in shelters, which is an indication that residents listened to evacuation orders.

Brandon Marlow walks through a flooded street in Fort Myers, Florida, on Wednesday night.

Milton’s winds decreased after its center came ashore tonight. It is now a Category 2 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane has winds of 110 mph with stronger gusts and is centered 20 miles northeast of Sarasota, Florida. Milton’s designation changed, but its dangerous impacts did not.

More than a million homes and businesses in the state are already without power and life-threatening flooding is ongoing.

Milton will remain a hurricane as it tracks across Florida overnight and into Thursday morning and its dangers will reach hundreds of miles from its center.

Storm surge inundated the city of Punta Gorda on Wednesday night, shortly after Hurricane Milton made landfall.

“We’re in the Gulf of Mexico,” Aaron Jayjack of AccuWeather wrote in a post on X, adding he had water up to his knees.

The water surged several feet within 30 minutes, Jayjack observed. Punta Gorda is more than 20 miles northwest of Fort Myers.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Hurricane Milton in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Florida officials Wednesday night in advance of Hurricane Milton making landfall, the White House said.

Those officials include Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert, and US Representatives Gus Bilirakis and Kathy Castor, according to the White House.

Biden “told each of these leaders to call him directly if they need additional assistance on rescue, response, and recovery efforts,” the White House said in a readout of the calls.

The president also spoke with Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia “to discuss the ongoing response and recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene.”

Water is being pushed out of Tampa Bay as Hurricane Milton moves into Florida south of the bay, bringing strong offshore winds.

All of the gauges in Tampa Bay are running well below the normally predicted values. The lowest value is in the northeastern part of the bay where the East Bay gauge is running more than 3.5 feet below expected values.

Forecast surge guidance from NOAA continues to show a significant upward swing overnight into early Thursday morning as the winds shift to a northwesterly direction as opposed to the current northeasterly winds.

Storm surge values are expected to swing from more than 3.5 feet below predicted values to about 2 feet above. Despite these significant fluctuations, Tampa Bay will avoid record-setting storm surge due to Hurricane Milton’s landfall location.

A flash flood emergency, the highest level of flood warning, has been issued for Tampa, St. Petersburg, Riverview and Palmetto, according to the National Weather Service. This is an upgrade of the previously issued considerable flood threat.

Clearwater and St. Petersburg are also under flash flooding emergency alert until 2:30 a.m. ET.

Crews work to remove debris from downed trees blocking roads in downtown Vero Beach, on Wednesday.

A record-tying three hurricanes have slammed into Florida this year: Francine, Helene and now Milton.

This has only happened in five other hurricane seasons since 1871 – more than 150 years of history.

The last time three hurricanes struck Florida in a single season was 2005, according to hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach. It also occurred in 2004, 1964, 1886 and 1871.

No season on record has had more than three hurricanes strike Florida.

Sarah Lutzker and her family tried to evacuate from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Georgia ahead of Hurricane Milton, but they had turn back because of the lack of gas. Now they are hunkering down and waiting for the storm to pass.

She is currently home with her 15-month-old daughter and two cats and is stocked up with plenty supplies, but is expecting to lose power any minute.

Lutzker said she moved to the area two months ago from Long Island, New York, and was expecting different weather, but not to this extent.

Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, as a Category 3 storm with 120 mph sustained winds and higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Milton will continue to unleash life-threatening storm surge, flooding rainfall and destructive winds both near and well-removed from where its center came ashore.

What is happening right now:

Where the storm is heading next: Milton will retain its hurricane strength as it tracks across central Florida through Thursday morning. Cities like Lakeland, Kissimmee, Orlando and Cape Canaveral are all in the forecasted path.

You can track Milton here.

First Street in downtown Fort Myers floods as Hurricane Milton passes through Wednesday.

Fort Myers, Florida, is starting to see “the worst flooding” as Hurricane Milton continues to bring storm surge to the area, CNN’s Carlos Suarez reports.

Suarez, who stood parallel to the Caloosahatchee River, said the flooding is one of the top concerns officials have had going into this storm.

During Hurricane Ian, Fort Myers saw storm surge of 10-11 feet. About 7-8 feet of flooding is expected in the area this time around, and about 5-6 feet of surge has already been reported, Suarez said.

More than 9 inches of rain have fallen in only three hours as Hurricane Milton’s heaviest rain band has parked itself over the Tampa Bay area on Wednesday evening. This represents more than a 1-in-1000 rainfall for St. Petersburg.

It also means that more than three months of average rainfall for the city fell in only three hours.

The National Weather Service is warning that major flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly, and that will lead to life-threatening impacts.

Power outages in Florida have doubled in just over an hour, leaving more than 1.1 million homes and businesses in the dark as Hurricane Milton pummels the state, according to PowerOutage.us

The most significant outages are in Sarasota County, where Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. ET, and nearby Manatee and Hardee counties.

Outages are expected to climb as the storm’s tropical storm-force winds move inward across the state.

Conditions in St. Petersburg, Florida, are “getting rough” and violent, CNN’s Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir said Wednesday night after Hurricane Milton made landfall.

Watch more from Weir in St. Petersburg:

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CNN's Bill Weir reports on Hurricane Milton

01:03 - Source: CNN

Street lights are seen in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday.

After Hurricane Milton made landfall in Sarasota County near Siesta Key as a Category 3 storm, emergency officials are warning that more dangerous weather is on the horizon.

“Residents should continue to shelter in place & remain vigilant,” the Florida Division of Emergency Management said in a Facebook post Wednesday evening.

“Deadly” hazards and weather conditions will continue well into Thursday as the storm moves across the state, officials said.

Strong winds, heavy rain and damaging tornadoes have already slammed some parts of the state, with areas including Tampa already reporting life-threatening flash flooding.

Conditions have become eerily calm in Sarasota, Florida, as the eye of Hurricane Milton passes over the city — which is just about 7 miles from where the Category 3 storm has just made landfall in Siesta Key, CNN’s Randi Kaye reports.

Just moments before, the wind was strong enough to topple fences and lash tarps.

“This is the calm before things pick up again. … It’s not the time to come outside,” Kaye said.

“If anybody was still in Siesta Key or nearby, they had to ride out Hurricane Milton there as that eye came over,” she said, noting the bridges to the barrier islands were closed Tuesday night.

Tampa was getting hit with strong winds and heavy rains as Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday night, Mayor Jane Castor told CNN’s Anderson Cooper

“The next few hours are going to be rough here in Tampa,” Castor said.

Some good news for the Florida city is that the storm surge there is no longer expected to reach 15 feet, but rather 6 to 9 feet, Castor said. But that’s still higher than it was for Hurricane Helene some two weeks ago.

“It’s going to move through pretty fast,” the mayor said about the storm. “We’re getting really pounded by the wind.”

She hopes that by 2 a.m., conditions will be much calmer and allow first responders to safely go back out and respond to emergencies, she said.

Heavy wind and rain is hitting Tampa, Florida, as Hurricane Milton makes landfall Wednesday night.

The volume of rain is creating flash flooding in the city, Todd reported, adding that about 6 inches of rain have already fallen with up to eight more inches forecasted for the next few hours.

Drains, sewers and canals are starting to overflow, pushing water into the streets, he said.

“It’s really not safe to be out in this, whether you’re in a vehicle or anything else,” Todd said.

Buildings and trees stand, as Hurricane Milton approaches Sarasota, Florida, on October 9.

A weather station in Egmont Channel at the mouth of Tampa Bay recorded a wind gust of 100 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Wind gusts of 89 mph have been recorded in the greater Tampa area and of 93 mph in the Sarasota area. A gust of 97 mph was reported in Venice.

The persistent westerly wind that’s howled through Tampa has begun to turn south, a clear sign that the city is entering into a new and extremely dangerous chapter in this storm.

The eye of Milton is onshore just south of Tampa Bay, and the city is now closer than ever to its eye wall.

At times, the unrelenting wind is so fierce it shakes walls and windows.

What had started as periodic flashes of blue lights across the city is nearly constant. Transformers are blowing somewhere across the city and its suburbs.

Somehow, the area near the city’s international airport has power — for now. Every single second it remains on seems miraculous in this wind.

At least 19 tornadoes have been confirmed in Florida and 116 tornado warnings were issued across the state, as Milton was making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Sarasota County with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Wednesday evening news briefing.

The hurricane will continue to move through central Florida into Thursday morning, and storm surge is already developing and will continue to impact the western and eastern coasts of Florida, along with significant rainfall, DeSantis said.

There have been nine flash flood warnings and four additional flood watches with “many, many more to come,” the governor said. The state has provided generators to shelters, staged fuel reserves, and Florida Highway Patrol is set to escort fuel trucks to service stations when the ports reopen, DeSantis said.

The Florida Department of Transportation is also ready to respond after the storm passes with 156 bridge inspectors, 402 cut and toss personnel and over 1,000 generators, 350 pieces of heavy equipment and trucks, DeSantis said.

“We have massive amounts of search and rescue equipment and personnel standing by, and we hope that there’s not a big need for that, but we’re prepared for that, and that’s not just our state and local,” DeSantis said, adding at least 9,000 National Guard personnel are on the ground.

Over 50,000 linemen are in Florida and will start the process of power restoration as soon as it’s safe to do so, DeSantis said.

Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Department of Emergency Management, said at the briefing that task forces from Miami, Ohio and Virginia are in Florida assisting with responding to areas that suffered structural damage from tornadoes.

Guthrie urged residents to seek shelter immediately and protect themselves with household items like pillows, heavy coats and blankets if they hear trees snapping, which can lead to flying debris.

“There may be a point where you think the storm is over. If it goes from absolutely horrible and terrible to absolutely nothing, then you are most likely in the eye of the tornado. Please stay in place. Do not come out,” Guthrie said.

A considerable flash flood warning has been issued for nearly 2 million people and includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

“Between 6 and 12 inches of rain have fallen. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly,” the Tampa National Weather Service warned.

“Life-threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses,” is likely the NWS said.

Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, as a Category 3 storm with 120 mph sustained winds and higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane will continue to unleash life-threatening storm surge, flooding rainfall and destructive winds both near and well-removed from where its center came ashore.

Milton will retain its hurricane strength as it tracks across central Florida through Thursday morning.

Milton is the fifth hurricane to make landfall in the US this year. It joins Category 1 Beryl, Category 1 Debby, Category 2 Francine and Category 4 Helene.

More hurricanes have made landfall in the US this year than from 2021 to 2023 combined.

Hurricane Milton makes landfall around 8:30 p.m. ET Wednesday in Florida.

As Hurricane Milton is close to landfall, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned residents it’s time to shelter in place.

Video from storm chasers in Florida shows storm surge from Hurricane Milton pushing into Charlotte Harbor.

The video from WxChasing shows streets completely underwater. Other clips show water levels that appear to have risen to the first floor of some houses.

Charlotte Harbor is located about 26 miles northwest of Fort Myers, both of which are in the cone of Milton.

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Watch as Hurricane Milton storm surge pushes into Charlotte Harbor, Florida

01:59 - Source: CNN

Milton’s damaging winds are cutting power to hundreds of thousands of Floridians. More than 600,000 homes and businesses in the state are without power, according to PowerOutage.us.

Outages will continue to climb as Milton tracks across the state as a hurricane overnight and its tropical storm-force winds roar hundreds of miles from its center.

Video in Florida from storm chasers at WxChasing shows blue flashes, which appear to be transformers exploding — an indicator of an imminent power outage.

Hurricane Milton is likely less than an hour away from making landfall, according to the latest data from the National Hurricane Center.

Milton is centered 20 miles southwest of Sarasota, Florida, and is moving east-northeast at 15 mph, according to the center. It’s still packing sustained winds of 120 mph with higher gusts and is a strong Category 3 hurricane.

“MILTON CLOSE TO MAKING LANDFALL ALONG THE COAST OF WEST-CENTRAL FLORIDA… LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGE, DAMAGING WINDS, AND FLOODING RAINS OCCURRING ACROSS PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHWESTERN FLORIDA,” the center warned.

A NOAA satellite captures Hurricane Milton on Wednesday night.

One veteran Florida meteorologist is warning people to watch out for how rapidly storm surge from Hurricane Milton could rise. Milton is expected to make landfall in the central part of the state soon.

John Morales, who is the longest-serving meteorologist in south Florida, said he has extensively studied the storm surge from Hurricane Ian.

In addition to storm surge, Milton will also bring extreme wind and flash flooding from heavy rain, the NBC 6 South Florida meteorologist said.

Extremely heavy rainfall across the Tampa area will continue and spread across Central Florida this evening, increasing the risk of life-threatening flash flooding.

“An axis of extreme rainfall, stretching from the Tampa metropolitan region northeastward into the north-central Florida Peninsula, is expected to result in major to locally catastrophic flash flooding with considerable threats to life and property,” the Weather Prediction Center warned.

Over 6 inches of rain has already fallen in Tampa, and the WPC is warning of an additional 5 to 8 inches in the next six hours. Rainfall rates could be as high as 2 to 3 inches an hour.

“Some locations could experience rainfall rates in excess of 1 inch per hour for 2-4 hours, causing rapid rises of water above the surface as water will not have sufficient time to drain, especially across the mostly impervious surfaces of the St. Petersburg into the Tampa metro and possibly nearing Orlando later tonight.”

St. Petersburg’s Albert Whitted Airport just reported a wind gust of 89 mph. The airport faces Tampa Bay.

Major flooding is now occurring in Naples as Milton’s storm surge causes water levels to rise to 3.7 feet above normally dry ground.

Just two weeks ago during Hurricane Helene, the storm surge in the area peaked at 4.02 feet even though the storm made landfall nearly 300 miles north of Naples, according to NOAA.

Fort Myers is also nearing 3 feet of water above normally dry ground. Both locations have increased by more than a foot in the last two hours.

Trees are blown by high speed winds in Bradenton, Florida, on Wednesday.

A 90 mph wind gust was recorded at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.

Milton’s torrential rainfall and extremely dangerous winds are pounding the Tampa Bay Area.

The hurricane has dumped more than 3 inches of rain in the past three hours in parts of the area, according to data from NOAA. An airport in St. Petersburg has picked up 3.49 inches of rain since 4 p.m. ET.

Hundreds of lineman trucks are staged at The Villages, Florida, on October 8.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state is well-prepared for Hurricane Milton thanks to federal and local support.

“Everything we’ve asked for, we’ve gotten. We’re working constructively with President Biden, we’ve marshalled all state agencies and we’re working very constructively with our local partners,” DeSantis told CBS News.

“We know what we’re doing here in Florida. We prepare for it. Floridians can rest assured: You’re going to have a very robust response. We’ve been ramping up for this,” he said.

DeSantis added his office is “working with FEMA to leverage resources,” and assured Floridians they will be allowed back into their homes once the storm passes.

A hurricane hunter with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who has been flying into Hurricane Milton said he is worried about the devastation the storm will bring to central Florida.

Nick Underwood, who has been collecting data from the eye of the storm all week, told CNN he has been helping his family and neighbors prepare in between flights. Underwood lives in St. Petersburg, one of the places that could be in the cone of Milton.

Underwood said he has been a hurricane hunter for eight years. While every hurricane he flies through is different, he said Milton is a “powerful storm.”

“People who decided not to evacuate, now is the time to shelter in place. Now is the time to be as safe as you can,” he said.

The job of hurricane hunters are essential. While they are flying through a storm, they are collecting atmospheric and oceanographic data that feeds the National Hurricane Center’s forecasts and models, he said. This data is what the NHC uses to issue watches and warnings to people living in those areas.

“The better job we can do in the air, the most accurate those predictions are going to be and the earlier we can warn people that the storm’s coming their way,” Underwood said.

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Video shows conditions in Tampa, Florida as Milton nears landfall

00:45 - Source: CNN

Milton has started the process of making landfall and its eyewall and most intense winds are coming onshore, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

Milton’s eyewall has winds screaming at 120 mph with higher gusts.

“The northern eyewall of Hurricane Milton is beginning to move onshore of the Florida gulf coast near Tampa and St. Petersburg where an Extreme Wind Warning is now in effect. Please shelter in place as these extremely dangerous hurricane-force winds overspread the region,” the center warned.

Remember: Landfall isn’t official until at least half of the hurricane’s eye crosses over land, likely within the next hour or two.

The Tampa area, which is bracing for Hurricane Milton’s impending landfall, is now under an extreme wind warning.

This type of warning is the most severe, most urgent alert for wind and indicates an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.”

“TAKE COVER NOW! Treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to the safe room in your shelter,” the Tampa National Weather Service warned. “Take action now to protect your life!”

Manatee, Pinellas and Pasco Counties, which are all in the path of Hurricane Milton, are temporarily suspending emergency services as weather conditions worsen as the storm gets closer to landfall.

“Due to hazardous conditions,” an alert from Manatee County says. “Emergency services are suspended. 911 calls will be logged for when service is safe to perform.”

Pinellas County advised residents to “shelter in place NOW” in a separate alert.

“Settle into a safe place and stay put until the threat has passed and it is safe to go outside,” the alert added.

The tornado count is steadily climbing in Florida as Milton’s outer bands lash the state.

There have been 18 tornado reports as of 6 p.m.

Over 100 combined tornado warnings had been issued today by the National Weather Service offices in Tampa Bay, Melbourne, and Miami.

As of 6 p.m. ET, here is the latest count by individual National Weather Service (NWS) offices:

Miami NWS:
-55 tornado warnings issued
-At least 9 confirmed tornadoes today (preliminary)

Melbourne NWS:
-40 tornado warnings

- At least 6 tornado preliminary touch downs

Tampa NWS:
- 29 tornado warnings issued

Bradenton residents are being warned to shelter in place because “you will die” if they are out when the storm hits, Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown said on CNN’s Situation Room Wednesday evening.

As water levels climb higher, Brown said he’s concerned about the people who live along the waterways. Not all of the storm debris from Helene was removed before Milton, and Brown worries the debris could become projectiles.

Bradenton is about 45 miles southwest of Tampa.

Hurricane Milton’s center is about 30 miles from land and now the entire storm can be seen from weather radar. Milton’s heavy rain – yellows and oranges – surround its circular eye and stretch over large portions of Florida.

Hurricane Milton as seen from Tampa's weather radar.

Waves are seen crashing near the shoreline of Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday.

Nearly 7.3 million Floridians across 15 counties have been urged to evacuate with Hurricane Milton quickly approaching.

CNN’s Boris Sanchez is in the Tampa Bay Area, where he says “conditions have deteriorated dramatically.” He reports “very, very strong winds” and “very pounding heavy rain.”

He aded that the waves in Tampa Bay are becoming stronger and noted that Tampa’s skyline — which typically could be seen from where he was standing — is now hidden away by a mass of clouds.

A 77 mph wind gust was recorded at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.

President Joe Biden speaks about Hurricane Milton from the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden blasted former President Donald Trump for what he said has been the “reckless and irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies on what’s going on,” surrounding response efforts from hurricanes Milton and Helene.

“It’s undermining confidence of the people in Florida and the incredible rescue and recovery work that has been undertaken,” Biden told reporters Wednesday.

The president said Trump “has led this onslaught of lies,” including false claims that federal assistance has been capped at $750, that authorities are taking advantage of the storm to seize property by those in the storm’s path, and that money has been diverted from FEMA’s relief coffers to house migrants.

And he lit into US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, where 33 people died as a result of Helene, for the “even more bizarre” claim that the federal government is “controlling the weather.”

“We’re controlling the weather? It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so stupid, it’s got to stop,” he said.

Asked by reporters in the room as to why Trump and others have taken the opportunity to spread misinformation, a visibly exasperated Biden seemed to be at a loss for words.

“I don’t know, I simply don’t know,” Biden said. “You can speculate, but I just find it—I’ve used the phrase more than I’ve used it ever my whole career: un-American. It’s un-American, it’s not who the hell we are. What are they talking about?”

A Florida Department of Transportation camera captured footage of a tornado moving through Fort Pierce on Wednesday, the video shows. Fort Pierce is a city along the state’s eastern coast.

The National Weather Service in Miami said on X a “large multi-vortex tornado remains on the ground now moving into Martin County,” and encouraged residents to seek shelter.

Massive piles of debris left over from Hurricane Helene should not be a concern as Milton approaches St. Petersburg – so long as residents heeded evacuation orders, Mayor Ken Welch told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“We don’t have to lose a life if folks just follow instructions,” Welch said.

He added the city has a “high census” of residents in shelters and thanked those who have evacuated ahead of the storm.

Welch confirmed first responders have paused emergency services, something he does not take lightly.

“For the safety of our police, fire, and medical teams, they will not be able to respond to emergency calls until it is safe to operate,” city officials previously said on X.

In a video, first responders said 911 services will remain open and crews will resume operations when it is safe to do so.

The city has also taken two sewer treatment plants offline to protect workers from the potential storm surge of Hurricane Milton, officials announced.

As a result, residents and businesses are encouraged to limit water usage.

“Please avoid taking showers, doing laundry, or washing dishes as much as possible. Please flush toilets only as necessary as the toilet may not drain,” city officials explained.

Hurricane Milton is still a few hours from making landfall, but over 250,000 customers in Florida have already lost power, according to poweroutage.us.

Power outages are increasing along west coast of Florida, but some of the counties that have the largest percentage of outages are actually in central and eastern areas of the state due to this afternoon’s tornado outbreak within the outer bands of Milton.

With hurricane-force gusts beginning to move onshore, power outages will begin to increase significantly for western Florida this evening.

One utility warned there could be up to 1 million outages in the state.

There could be up to 1 million power outages throughout Duke Energy Florida’s service area in the state due to Hurricane Milton, according to a company spokesperson.

That number could be higher if electrical structures are destroyed, spokesperson Logan Stewart said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Once conditions are safe, there are 16,000 crews from Duke Energy Florida that are ready to deploy to restore power to customers, she added.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall in west-central Florida in a few hours — and the National Weather Service said people no longer have time to evacuate safely.

Experts are now encouraging people to shelter in place and stay indoors “unless a life-threatening situation arises.”

If you still are in the hurricane’s path, here are some last-minute precautions you should take:

For more tips on how to prepare:

Winds along the west coast of Florida are continuing to increase as the center of Hurricane Milton is now just 50 miles from Sarasota.

A sustained wind of 58 mph and a gust of 77 mph were reported in the last hour at the mouth of Tampa Bay in the Egmont Channel, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Other top wind gusts as of 6 p.m. include:
- Venice: 68 mph
- St. Petersburg: 66 mph
- Clearwater: 61 mph
- Sarasota: 60 mph

Hurricane Milton is quickly approaching the west coast of Florida and storm surge is ramping up in southwest Florida. Some areas could end up seeing more than 10 feet of surge by this evening.

Naples is currently experiencing 2.76 feet of inundation over normally dry ground, which is into moderate flood stage. This is up more than 3 feet since midday.

Fort Myers is experiencing nearly 2 feet of inundation over normally dry ground as of 5:00 p.m.

Surge values will increase quickly this evening due to the Milton making landfall and the tide transitioning toward a high tide later tonight.

Even with the core of Hurricane Milton still hours from making landfall, the storm surge numbers being reported are worrisome, National Weather Service Director Ken Graham told CNN.

“My biggest concern, Jake, we are already starting to see some of the water levels rise,” Graham said to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday. “I am scared to death of some of these storm surge levels. The values are absolutely dangerous and deadly.”

Graham said the massive storm, which is forecast to cross from Florida’s Gulf Coast to the East Coast, will present dangers for many people throughout the state.

The center of the storm is forecast to come ashore this evening.

Graham told people along the Atlantic coast in Florida, and even Georgia, to be prepared.

“Take it serious,” he said.

There will be several feet of storm surge and heavy rains and that combination could cause serious flooding, he said. And the storm has also produced a large number of tornadoes.

Ron Rook, who said he was looking for people in need of help or debris to clear, walks through windy and rainy conditions in downtown Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday.

The mayor of Tampa, Florida, said that although the National Hurricane Center’s latest update “isn’t good for our community,” the city will “take whatever Milton brings in.”

Authorities still are responding to community needs, but “there comes a point where it becomes a danger to their life as well,” Castor said. When storm conditions worsen, authorities will “without a doubt” have to stop providing services and have to wait until it is safe again, she said.

Satellite imagery is providing a view of Hurricane Milton from space as it churns closer to Florida.

NOAA’s GOES East satellite provides new images of Minton’s clouds every 30 seconds, the agency said. The GOES satellites — short for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites — are NOAA’s most sophisticated, according to its website. The agency posted a clip of imagery on X on Wednesday.

Frequent flashes of lighting are also visible in the video.

The satellite is orbiting more than 22,000 miles “above Earth’s equator, at speeds equal to the Earth’s rotation,” NOAA said, allowing it to stay over specific locations.

Heavy rain, strong winds and a prolific tornado outbreak are underway in Florida with worse conditions and life-threatening storm surge to come. Milton is expected to hit the central part of the state later tonight.

See the satellite imagery:

A sailing drone captured a 28-foot wave and wind gusts of nearly 76 mph near the center of Hurricane Milton, according to NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

The wave was recorded 40 nautical miles from the center of the storm, according to the lab.

Watch video of the massive wave here:

Hurricane Milton is rapidly approaching the west-central coast of Florida on Wednesday evening as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph.

Milton’s center is located only 60 miles southwest of Sarasota, Florida. Wind gusts over 60 mph are already occurring along the SW Florida coastline along with rising storm surge.

Milton could start making landfall by 8 p.m., with the worst conditions beginning soon and lasting into early Thursday morning along west-central Florida.

Rain begins to fall ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton in Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday.

Tampa Bay water levels are expected to swing widely, from low to high, as winds increase and change direction as Hurricane Milton moves through on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

While it appears that Tampa Bay will avoid the record surge feared if Milton passed north or directly into the bay, the proximity of Milton’s core will still significant change the bay’s water levels.

Strong winds blowing offshore will likely lead to “reverse surge” – or extremely low water levels as the winds blow water out of the bay and into the ocean until the storm passes late tonight.

But after the eye of the storm passes south of Tampa overnight, the winds over the Bay will change direction and start to blow from a more westerly direction. This will occur as the tide is also rising ahead of the normal high tide around 6 a.m ET.

Water levels are projected to rise 6 feet in 6 hours on Thursday morning, according to NOAA forecasts. At this time, water levels are not expected to reach the heights observed in Hurricane Helene two weeks ago.

More than 500 bridges in western North Carolina were damaged by Hurricane Helene, the state transportation secretary said Wednesday, and more than 100 will need to be fully replaced – numbers that emphasize the devastating impact of the storm two weeks ago.

More than 600 culverts were damaged, Department of Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins said at a news conference. And areas in 10 counties are so cut off that access is possible only by all-terrain vehicles, foot bridges and National Guard vehicles, he said.

“While we still have many roads closed and damaged,” Hopkins said, “we’re thankful for our crews and contractors who have reopened more than 460 roads. We’re reporting just over 600 road closures in our system; 98 of those are primary roads, and this number is still changing daily.”

Work to repair the westbound lanes of Interstate 40 should be complete by early next year, Hopkins said. The highway was damaged by a landslide and part of it collapsed near the Tennessee state line. Eastbound lanes have already reopened.

The Kennedy Space Center, located on Florida’s East Coast, has entered lockdown ahead of Hurricane Milton’s approach, NASA confirmed on Wednesday.

HURCON, or Hurricane Condition, is a scale used by NASA and US Armed Forces to indicate the state of preparations for an emergency as a hurricane approaches. The space agency passes through several stages before a storm makes landfall: HURCON 3, which is declared when damaging winds are possible within 48 hours. HURCON 2 levels indicate damaging winds are possible within 24 hours, and HURCON I occurs 12 hours prior.

Ride Out Teams include NASA personnel that must remain on space agency campus in order to support crucial ongoing missions. That includes mission control for the International Space Station.

Robert Haight looks around his destroyed house after it was hit by a reported tornado in Fort Myers, Florida, on October 9.

One family in Fort Myers, Florida, was inside their house when a tornado ripped off the roof on Wednesday.

Hurricane Milton has spawned several tornadoes, as well as torrential rain and thunderstorms that are lashing the coast as the most dangerous parts of the storm move closer.

Robert Haight told AccuWeather he and his pregnant wife started moving toward the hallway after they saw the tornado coming toward them.

With the roof gone, the entire inside of the house is exposed, littered with debris and the family’s possessions.

Why tornadoes: Milton’s outer rainbands are interacting with a front draped over Florida, which is charging up the atmosphere with an extra boost of energy. This extra atmospheric energy, combined with afternoon heat, some lingering dry air and added spin in the atmosphere from Milton is what is allowing the hurricane to produce quite a few tornadoes over the next several hours.

Watch a tornado blow by another house in Fort Myers:

CNN Meteorologists Mary Gilbert and Brandon Miller contributed reporting to this post.

Police officers in Sarasota will stay on the streets until the winds in the area top 45 mph, Police Chief Rex Troche told CNN.

“If people need help, we’re not going to be able to come to them,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday afternoon.

Judging by the traffic he sees on the street, it appears a lot of people evacuated, Troche said. It’s getting late for more people to do that, he said.

“We’re at the point now where we really need to think about hunkering down,” he said. The chief was staying in a building rated to withstand winds from a Category 5 hurricane – and windows near him were shaking “really bad,” he said.

The National Weather Service earlier this afternoon said it was now time to shelter in place from Milton – that people should stay indoors “unless a life-threatening situation arises.”

Flooding would cause problems for buildings that were damaged during Hurricane Helene and still are in tough shape, Troche said.

The National Weather Service issued a statement saying it is now time to shelter-in-place from Milton — the time to safely evacuate is over.

“Unless a life-threatening situation arises, stay indoors and follow updates,” the weather service said.

Milton is a now a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 125 miles per hour, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center. The storm is now located 130 miles from Fort Myers and 150 miles from Tampa.

Here’s what to know:

Impacts won’t lessen: Heavy rain, strong winds and a prolific tornado outbreak are underway in Florida. Milton’s strong winds have also begun to drive water levels higher than they should be. It’s near low tide near Naples, Florida, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the ocean. Storm surge of nearly 3 feet is impacting the area.

Milton’s size has more than doubled since yesterday: The wind field of the powerful hurricane is growing, according to the latest data from the National Hurricane Center. Milton’s tropical storm-force winds now extend 250 miles from its center, especially on its northern side. These same winds extended 105 miles from its center early Tuesday afternoon. Its wind field could grow further ahead of and after landfall, bringing damaging winds to much of the Florida Peninsula.

Highway closures: Florida Highway Patrol announced the closure of several bridges in the Tampa Bay area Wednesday afternoon:

Beware of scams and price gouging: The Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday sent notice warning consumers about “potential fraud or price gouging” in times of a natural disaster. The agencies reminded consumers that FEMA never asks for a fee to provided disaster relief, and urged consumers who may have encountered a scam to report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

The high tide is coming in the southwest Florida city of Naples and officials are concerned, Mayor Teresa Heitmann told CNN.

“As the (storm) surge comes and the high tide arrives, we know we’re about to get hit with a major, serious storm,” she said, saying they also were concerned about the strong winds that would go into the night.

“It’s concerning because this feels like Ian all over again,” referring to the 2022 hurricane that devastated the area.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, high tide in Naples should come just before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and again just after 4 a.m. Thursday.

The mayor said the city was able to get its storm water and sewage systems pumped out after Hurricane Helene and before Milton.

The city has a curfew that begins at 4 p.m. But a lot of people have stayed in Naples, she said.

Hurricane Milton’s growing wind field will cover nearly the entire Florida Peninsula as the hurricane moves over the state Wednesday night through Thursday morning.

Milton’s tropical storm-force wind field of sustained winds of 39 mph or greater has already more than ›doubled in size since yesterday and currently stretches for more than 300 miles from one end to the other.

This view shows Hurricane Milton's projected wind field while over the state Thursday morning.

The wind field will continue to grow Thursday morning and will stretch for 425 miles, reaching from Miami on the southern end to Savannah, Georgia, on its northern end.

Milton’s peak wind speeds decreased this afternoon, and the hurricane now has sustained winds of 125 mph, making it a Category 3 hurricane.

The hurricane’s category change isn’t going to lessen its impacts. Heavy rain, strong winds and a prolific tornado outbreak are underway in Florida with worse conditions and life-threatening storm surge to come.

Hurricane-force winds will start to batter the coast later today ahead of Milton’s landfall tonight. The hurricane’s most torrential rainfall will also get underway for areas north of its center ahead of landfall.

Milton is generating a prolific tornado outbreak in Florida and it isn’t done yet.

The National Weather Service has issued 90 tornado warnings in Florida and counting today – more than have ever been issued in the state in a single day. A handful of these warnings were given the incredibly serious designation of “particularly dangerous situation.”

Tornado warnings (red) since Wednesday morning are overlaid on a radar loop of Milton.

At least 11 confirmed tornadoes have roared over parts of Florida since this morning, according to weather service reports.

Irma generated the second-most most tornado warnings in a day with 69 on September 10, 2017. Helene is third with 48 on September 26.

As Hurricane Milton moves closer to land, the forecast track has narrowed, allowing for more accurate storm surge predictions.

Forecast surge levels for the area from Anna Maria Island to Boca Grande have been nudged down slightly to 9 to 13 feet from 10 to 15 feet. All other storm surge forecasts have remained the same.

This means that the maximum storm surge value being forecast by the National Hurricane Center for the storm is now 13 feet.

NOAA’s hurricane hunters flew through the eye of Hurricane Milton Wednesday on the agency’s plane called “Miss Piggy.”

These missions collect data to help improve forecasts and support hurricane research, according to the post on X from NOAA. See the crew’s view from the eye of the storm:

A motorist drives past broken utility poles downed by strong wind gusts as Hurricane Milton approaches Fort Myers, Florida, on Wednesday.

Milton’s most destructive winds are still hours away from the Florida coast, but strong winds and heavy rain are already pounding the state.

Here are the most significant reports as of 2:30 p.m.:

Wind:

Rain (since midnight):

The fire chief in Florida’s St. Pete Beach is concerned that structures potentially weakened by Hurricane Helene nearly two weeks ago may be ripe for collapse from Hurricane Milton, he said Wednesday.

“My concern is that we just went through another storm about 13 days ago. These structures that have been hit by water and wind, they’re in a weakened state. I’m worried that this next storm may cause collapse,” St. Pete Beach Fire Chief Jim Kilpatrick told CNN’s Boris Sanchez.

The response capabilities for the fire department in St. Pete Beach – situated on a barrier island west of St. Petersburg – will be very limited during the storm, Kilpatrick said. “Once we evacuate the island, once our resources have left the island, we are stuck in our emergency operation center. We will not be performing rescues until we get an all-clear to get back out on the island,” Kilpatrick said.

During the early afternoon interview with Kilpatrick, CNN caught on camera a few adults and children standing near a shoreline in the Tampa area, watching the increasingly rough waters of Tampa Bay. The fire chief warned against being outside even as the storm approached.

“Those waters are dangerous. Those winds are dangerous,” he said. “It is not safe to be outside right now. You should be in a structure that is able to withstand the storm and be hunkering down.”

Joseph Malinowski, known locally as “Lieutenant Dan,” lives on a 20-foot sailboat tied down to the dock in downtown Tampa’s Hillsborough Bay, but tells CNN he has no plans to evacuate even as Hurricane Milton quickly approaches Florida, threatening a deadly storm surge.

“I believe in my heart that God wants me to stay out here until this is all over,” Malinowski said as Tampa police officers warned, “You’re going to die,” while telling him about potential surge and threatening to arrest him.

Malinowski said he lost his leg at 16-years-old in a scooter accident, survived cancer, survived an opioid addiction, and survived Helene in his boat less than two weeks ago. He insists he’ll survive Milton.

He’s refusing to go to a shelter.

Malinowski and his boat are in “Evacuation Zone A” and under mandatory Evacuation Orders. The mayor of Tampa says residents in evacuations zone have reached the critical point when it’s time to get out.

Authorities say once the storm reaches maximum sustained winds, emergency responders will not be able to help residents who did not evacuate.

“We’re getting very, very close to the point where people will not be able to get out,” said Mayor Jane Castor said in a Wednesday news briefing.

CNN reporter Isabel Rosales reminded Malinowski that boats also sink.

“I really hope that you evacuate because people died from Helene in situations exactly like this,” Rosales said. “People drowned.”

At least 20 people died in Florida as a result of Helene.

National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan warned Wednesday afternoon that conditions in Florida will soon start to deteriorate rapidly.

“It’s looking like the storm of the century,” President Joe Biden said from the White House on Wednesday.

Malinowski knows there are shelters available for people to take cover from the impending storm. Hillsborough County has 12 shelters available.

Isabel Rosales interviews "Lieutentant Dan" on Wednesday in Tampa, Florida.

Tens of thousands of Hurricane Milton evacuees are now in public storm shelters, and there is plenty of room for more, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday afternoon.

“We’ve got over 30,000 individuals that are in it, but we have space for over 200,000 individuals,” DeSantis said during a briefing in Lake City as Milton’s outer bands were hitting the state.

People arrive at a shelter at Buffalo Creek Middle School in Bradenton, Florida, ahead of Hurricane Milton's expected landfall on October 9, 2024.

The governor said there were nearly 150 state and local shelters in place for Milton. At least one shelter in every county under an evacuation order is pet-friendly, DeSantis said, and at least one in each county can accommodate evacuees with special needs.

To encourage people reluctant to leave their homes, the governor added that many shelters are equipped with Wi-Fi connected to Starlink internet systems so evacuees can stay connected.

“Look, it’s not the Four Seasons,” DeSantis said earlier in the day, “but there are some things there that will make it tolerable to be able to get through the next 24 to 36 hours.”

Nearly 7.3 million Floridians live in 15 counties with mandatory evacuation orders, but not all are in a position to evacuate.

That includes:

Hospitals: Sixteen hospitals have evacuated ahead of Milton, according to a Wednesday afternoon update from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Flood control plans are in place at Tampa General Hospital, Senior Director of Public Safety Tony Venezia told CNN’s Pamela Brown Wednesday, and there are no plans on evacuating patients. The hospital is powered by a four-story energy plant 33 feet above sea level, according to the hospital’s website; therefore, the generators are not expected to flood.

In anticipation of storm surge during Hurricane Helene, crews set up an AquaFence outside the facility that can withstand up to 15 feet of water, and it “did exactly what it was designed to do,” Venezia said, noting it remains intact for Milton.

Prisons: Despite being located in an evacuation zone that’s under an emergency evacuation order, Manatee County Jail has not and will not evacuate inmates, according to Randy Warren, public information officer for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. He said the inmates are “storm safe,” since the facility “is a hurricane-rated, two-story facility built on higher ground” with multiple generators for emergency power, extra staff and emergency workers on site to help with any issues. The jail is fully stocked with supplies and enough food and water for several days, he said.

Inmates who need medical care or have physical disabilities are being moved to a secure, second level. If water seeps into the ground floor, all inmates and staff will move upstairs as well, Warren said.

A man looks at a roof on a street from a nearby house after a likely tornado hit the area in Fort Myers, Florida, on Wednesday.

Hurricane Milton has already spawned tornadoes in Florida hours before its projected landfall, and the city of Fort Myers was pummeled by one.

Video and photos show damaged houses, fallen trees and a mangled 7-Eleven gas station. A piece of the 7-Eleven’s canopy went airborne and ended up wrapped around the bottom of a tree.

Parts of the roof of a gas station lie around palm trees on Wednesday in Fort Myers.

Homeowner Dylan Boehm evacuated his Fort Myers house, but his security camera captured trees shaking in ferocious winds. Parts of the trees blew off and became projectiles.

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Tornado rips through neighborhood as Milton approaches

00:34 - Source: CNN

And in nearby Matlacha, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno shared a photo of toppled power lines, trees and traffic signs all leaning in the same direction.

The Lee County community of Matchala suffers damage from Hurricane Milton hours before landfall Wednesday.

The National Weather Service issued a statement saying it is now time to shelter-in-place from Milton.

The time to safely evacuate is now ending as the storm’s worst surge, wind and rain start to build across Florida in the coming hours.

“Unless a life-threatening situation arises, stay indoors and follow updates,” the weather service said.

The Waffle House Index shows the number of restaurants closed due to the storm has tripled since Tuesday, going from about 30 locations on Tuesday to more than 90 as of Wednesday afternoon.

The latest closures are in central and eastern coastal areas of Florida.

Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast overnight as a major hurricane, and it could become one of the most destructive storms on record there.

Why this is a big deal: Waffle House has a reputation of staying open during natural disasters, even when other restaurants are closed. The Waffle House Index is even an unofficial measure by a former FEMA official to evaluate how severely a storm hit an area. So if the Waffle House closes, it means the storm is getting serious.

More about the Waffle House Index: The index uses a color-coded key to evaluate the degree of damage done to an area and what resources the area will need, based on the Waffle House schedule.

🔴 Red: Waffle House is closed completely. If Waffle House is closed, that area was probably hardest hit.

🟡 Yellow: Waffle House is open, but they’re serving a limited menu. This could mean the area is experiencing power outages or water isn’t safe to drink, but people can get around.

🟢 Green: Waffle House is up and running at peak condition. This doesn’t mean everything’s perfect in the area, but it’s a sign that basic services are intact.

CNN’s Elise Hammond and Ramishah Maruf contributed reporting to this post.

Florida Highway Patrol announced the closure of several bridges in the Tampa Bay area Wednesday afternoon ahead of Milton’s landfall expected late Wednesday night.

Milton is a powerful hurricane, and its wind field is growing, according to the latest data from the National Hurricane Center.

Milton’s tropical storm-force winds now extend 250 miles from its center, especially on its northern side. These same winds extended 105 miles from its center early Tuesday afternoon.

Its wind field could grow further ahead of and after landfall, bringing damaging winds to much of the Florida Peninsula. Tropical storm-force wind gusts have already been observed along parts of the state’s west coast from north of the Tampa Bay area through the Keys.

Pedro Caceres' hurricane Milton preparations are seen.

Pedro Caceres is not taking chances with the roof of his home.

The Orlando resident showed CNN’s Brian Abel on Wednesday the extensive preparations on his home ahead of Hurricane Milton. Heavy-duty cargo straps stretch from the front yard over the top of the home to the backyard, and the straps are hooked into buried cement.

He said he brought the idea over from Puerto Rico, where he used to live over 20 years ago. The set-up cost about $2,000 for the specialized equipment and another $1,000 for the cement holding down the strap that was poured 8 feet into the ground, he said.

This is the second time he’s strapped the home down, with the first being Hurricane Charley in 2004.

“We’re praying to God that this second hurricane holds our home, like it did the first time,” his daughter, Raisa Càceres, said.

Milton’s strong winds have begun to drive water levels higher than they should be.

It’s near low tide near Naples, Florida, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the ocean. Storm surge of nearly 3 feet is impacting the area.

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‘There’s nowhere to go’: Floridians tell CNN why they’re not following evacuation orders

01:53 - Source: CNN

For some along Florida’s west coast, the prospect of another evacuation two weeks after Hurricane Helene – and deep into the 2024 hurricane season – was simply too much.

“It’s, like, PTSD,” said Holly Speckhart, who planned to weather Milton on Isla del Sol off St. Petersburg, Florida, with neighbors in a five-story building, watching Tampa Bay Rays baseball, sipping a Modelo, resting on inflatable mattresses in an interior hallway and, if needed, escaping the worst in an interior stairwell.

But even as officials kept begging people to leave coastal areas – “You need to help us by evacuating,” Tampa Fire Rescue’s chief pleaded Wednesday morning, adding, “I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude” – a subset of residents across Florida’s western edge were staying put.

“My biggest thing is: I don’t want to leave,” she concluded. “I just see what happens in a week. You know, you got mold, you got damage. I figure I can be here.”

Read the full story on the Floridians who are staying put.

Hurricane Milton’s projected devastation in Florida could have a ripple effect on the broader US economy — impacting jobs, travel, manufacturing, retail sales, housing and other factors.

About 3% of America’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the US economy — is directly in Milton’s path, according to Ryan Sweet, chief US economist for Oxford Economics.

Milton could shave more than a tenth of a percentage point off America’s fourth-quarter GDP number, Sweet estimated in a report Wednesday. While that might sound like a small number, it’s actually significant when you’re talking about a $29 trillion economy.

Canceled trips to Disney World, lagging home sales and stymied oil supply could hurt economic output.

Hurricane Helene, which barreled across the Southeast just two weeks ago, could result in 50,000 fewer jobs in the October US jobs report, Sweet estimated. That report will be released in early November.

And Hurricane Milton could “noticeably increase” the impact on jobs, Sweet said.

But the economy should make up the difference in the long run, as jobs return and rebuilding efforts get underway.

Chris Williams runs through a rain storm as he packs his car to evacuate his apartment before Hurricane Milton's arrival on Wednesday in Fort Myers, Florida.

Top federal weather and emergency officials warned conditions in Florida will soon start to deteriorate rapidly and urged residents to take Hurricane Milton seriously.

“The conditions are going to rapidly deteriorate over the next few hours, especially where landfall is going to occur along the west coast,” National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said Wednesday.

Brennan said it is still tough to predict exactly where Milton will make landfall.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said in addition to 1,000 federal personnel stationed in Florida, the Biden administration is adding an additional 1,200 search and rescue personnel from various federal agencies, 500 ambulances, and 30 high-water vehicles, helicopters and boats to assist with rescues after the hurricane hits.

Multiple confirmed tornadoes have torn across South Florida since this morning, and it may just be the beginning of the chaos.

Milton’s outer rainbands are interacting with a front draped over Florida which is charging up the atmosphere with an extra boost of energy. The state will also warm up through the afternoon, before Milton’s heaviest rain and thick cloud cover arrive and limit additional heating. Heat fuels severe thunderstorms.

This extra atmospheric energy, combined with afternoon heat, some lingering dry air and added spin in the atmosphere from Milton will allow the hurricane to produce quite a few tornadoes over the next several hours.

A level 3 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms is in place for parts of Florida today, mainly due to the tornado risk Milton poses.

“The greatest tornado potential should be focused this afternoon and even across parts of central and south Florida,” the Storm Prediction Center warned Wednesday.

Florida is in a tough spot when it comes to Gulf hurricanes and tornadoes. Most tropical tornadoes happen on the right-front side of the storm and that’s exactly where Milton’s track has placed southern and central Florida.

Some of Milton’s most intense winds are expected to affect areas that don’t typically experience them during a hurricane.

The most intense area of a hurricane in the northern hemisphere is in the right front side of the storm with respect to landfall. This is often called the “dirty side” of the storm. In Milton’s case that would be the southeast side (picture the face of an analog clock, this would be between the 3 and 6).

If you are on the dirty side you will typically experience the strongest winds and tornadoes. With Milton, however, this will not necessarily be the case because the hurricane will be interacting with a frontal boundary and turning extra-tropical – and its tight core of strongest winds could expand – while making landfall.

This means some of the worst wind will be on the northern side of the storm (think between the 9 and 3 on the face of the clock), including in areas that may not be hit by storm surge.

“Hurricane force winds to the north of the center are likely to expand, exposing areas along and north of the track that may not experience the catastrophic storm surge threat to destructive winds with gusts well in excess of 100 mph possible in some locations,” the National Weather Service in Tampa said.

Residents of St. Peterburg, Florida, should know that water, sewer, and electric service could be offline “for an extended period” following Hurricane Milton, as sustained hurricane-force winds are expected to cause extensive damage to the city’s infrastructure, the city’s mayor said Wednesday.

Power outages may not be resolved for weeks, “depending on the level of damage,” St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said.

While the city does not have plans to preemptively shut down drinking water, it may need to take wastewater facilities offline, “depending on the level of storm surge and related damage,” Welch said during a news conference.

“The decision to bring those facilities offline will depend on how long staff can safely remain on the premises at those facilities. When the winds and waters start to pick up, we will need to protect our staff and remove them from those facilities,” Welch said. “Staff will return to the plant as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Public Works Administrator Claude Tankersley assured residents that notice would be given ahead of a plant shutdown. “We’re going to be watching the storm surge, watching the winds very closely, to determine what we’re going to do. Our No. 1 priority, though, is to protect our operators. We’ve got to get them off site,” he said.

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St. Petersburg’s mayor warns residents to prepare for water and sewer shut-offs

01:49 - Source: CNN

Dangerous tornadoes are impacting multiple parts of South Florida.

“At 1251 PM EDT, a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado was located… 12 miles north of Fort Myers, moving north at 25 mph,” the National Weather Service warned.

“This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. TAKE COVER NOW!”

The warning, which expires at 1 p.m. ET covers nearly 200,000 people. Additional warnings are possible.

Manatee County, located between Sarasota and Tampa, two of the areas expected to be hit hard by Milton, is arranging for transportation to move homeless people from pickup locations to shelters, according to a county official.

The Manatee County community paramedics program has been working “nonstop over the last few days to make contact” with and alert unhoused people of what’s happening and where the shelters are located, according to Jodie Fiske, Manatee County Public Safety Director.

Manatee County public transportation has arranged locations for people to be picked up safely and taken to a shelter “to ride out the hurricane,” she said.

Some context: About 147,000 residents and visitors have been asked to evacuate Manatee County, and “we’re actually seeing a lot of movement,” according to Chief of Emergency Management Matt Myers. The county, on the south side of Tampa Bay, could get pummeled by more than 10 feet of life-threatening storm surge, he said.

Fiske cautioned there will come a point when the county will not be able to run rescue vehicles because of the storm surge and winds, “and so that becomes incredibly dangerous for anyone to try to stay.”

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Biden calls out Trump's lies about hurricane response

03:51 - Source: CNN

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said Hurricane Milton is shaping up to possibly be a historic storm, while urging residents in Florida to heed evacuation orders.

“It’s looking like the storm of the century,” Biden said from the White House on Wednesday.

“Many communities in Hurricane Milton’s path do not have a moment to catch their breath between Helene and Milton, two historic storms in two weeks,” he said.

Biden urged everyone in the storm’s path to “follow all safety instructions as we head into the next 24 hours.”

Warning about misinformation: Biden also reiterated his denouncement of disinformation that has been swirling in the wake of Hurricane Helene and as Florida prepares for Milton, calling out former President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by name for promoting false rumors.

“The last few weeks, there’s been a reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies,” the president said. He added the rumors are “undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been taken and will continue to be taken, and it’s harmful to those who need help the most.”

Milton’s forecast landfall time was adjusted earlier due to the track shifting south.

The National Hurricane Center said the storm could come ashore as early as 11 p.m., or within the next 12 hours, somewhere near or just south of Sarasota.

That slight shift is important. The hurricane’s landfall point has shifted south by 10 miles since this morning and 16 miles south since Tuesday morning. It also means the storm has less of the Gulf of Mexico to cover before it reaches land, hence the sooner time.

The earlier landfall time also does not leave much time for Milton to weaken. With only 12 hours left over water, it will likely still make landfall as a major hurricane tonight, at Category 3 or 4 strength.

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Meteorologist says Milton will continue to be a wind event

02:06 - Source: CNN

As Florida braces for back-to-back hurricanes, Biden administration officials are estimating it will cost “tens of billions” to recover from the damaged caused by Hurricane Helene alone, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

During a briefing in the Roosevelt Room on Tuesday, President Joe Biden encouraged agency representatives to identify existing sources of funding that could be redirected toward immediate post-storm needs. That pool of funding is not expected to exceed a few billion dollars, which the White House has acknowledged will pale in comparison to what will be needed once the total damage from both Helene and Milton is tallied.

In a letter to Congress, Biden suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense — the main early distributors of aid — had what they needed to meet immediate needs of residents and business owners. A Small Business Administration program that provides money to homeowners and business owners to cover damaged property, Biden warned, would run out before Congress returned from recess.

A letter Biden sent to congressional leaders last week urged lawmakers to pursue “comprehensive disaster relief” after Congress comes back into session on November 12. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a lawmaker whose home state of Louisiana is familiar with hurricane needs, has suggested he would not call Congress back to Washington before its recess but would be willing to address the issue after that.

The White House and the Office of Management and Budget declined to comment.

FEMA’s funds: FEMA is down to $11 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund after spending about $9 billion of its recently appropriated money in a little over a week, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters Wednesday.

Milton now has winds of 130 mph and is moving north-northeast at 16 mph per the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane is now located 130 miles from Fort Myers and 150 miles from Tampa.

The storm could weaken more today as it approaches landfall, but its impact will not: life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and dangerous flooding rain are all incoming. Heavy rain, tornadoes and a few feet of storm surge are already underway in parts of the state.

Milton is still expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane at landfall – at least Category 3 strength. The hurricane will continue to slow its forward speed over the next few hours and approach landfall Wednesday night.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which connects Pinellas County to Manatee County, is closed, and EMS and fire are no longer responding to barrier islands as weather conditions in Manatee County are rapidly worsening ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival, county officials said Wednesday.

“Where you are now is where you’re going to be during the duration of Milton,” Manatee County Emergency Management’s Matt Myers said during a news conference early Wednesday afternoon. “We do not advise you to go anywhere at this time.”

Vice President Kamala Harris urged residents in Hurricane Milton’s path to heed evacuation warnings, saying officials expect the storm to be “catastrophic and deadly.”

“This storm is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Anyone who has been told to evacuate needs to do so, Harris added.

A hospital worker walks by as an AquaFence flood wall is put into place around Tampa General Hospital in Tampa on October 8.

No evacuations are planned at Tampa General Hospital ahead of Hurricane Milton, said Tony Venezia, the hospital’s senior director of public safety.

Flood control plans are in place, since the building sits just feet away from Hillsborough Bay in downtown Tampa, Venezia told CNN’s Pamela Brown Wednesday.

The hospital is powered by a four-story energy plant 33-feet above sea level, according to the hospital’s website. This way the generators won’t flood, Venezia said. When faced with comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, Venezia noted some New Orleans hospitals kept their generators in the basement.

“We don’t expect [patients] to see any difference here during the storm, or after the storm, than they would on any normal day, so that level of care will remain the same,” he said. In anticipation of storm surge, crews set up an AquaFence outside the facility which can withstand up to 15 feet of water. Previously, the hospital set up the fence for Hurricane Helene.

“In the last hurricane, it did exactly what it was designed to do,” Venezia said. “It kept the water on the other side of the fence, and it was literally bone dry on the hospital side.”

Tampa General Hospital purchased the fence in 2019 and has used it every year since, according to Venezia.

The mayor of Tampa, Florida, says residents in evacuation zones have reached the critical point when it’s time to get out.

“Those individuals that are making those last-minute preparations, put a move on it,” Mayor Jane Castor said in a Wednesday news briefing.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge was closed just as Castor spoke, with more closures to come Wednesday afternoon.

“We’re getting very, very close to the point where people will not be able to get out,” said Castor.

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Tampa mayor urges residents making last-minute preparations to ‘put a move on it’

01:52 - Source: CNN

Milton’s outermost rainbands are producing dangerous storms in parts of South Florida. Multiple confirmed tornadoes have impacted the region since this morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Already, at least three separate tornado warnings have warranted a “particularly dangerous situation” upgrade. This type of wording is nearly the most dire the weather service can use, second only to a tornado emergency, indicating that a damaging tornado is on the ground.

All three tornado warnings seemed to have spawned by the same tornado-producing storm. The most recent particularly dangerous situation warning expired at noon, but the tornado threat will persist for Florida.

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Videos show ‘large and extremely dangerous' tornadoes in Florida

00:31 - Source: CNN

The American public will see or hear President Joe Biden — who postponed this week’s overseas trip to Germany and Angola — speak about Hurricane Milton at least three times this afternoon.

Officials say Biden’s public engagement on the hurricane reflects the high level of concern across the White House about the toll that Milton is about to take. Biden and his administration are bracing for Milton to be the storm of a lifetime — with potentially an unprecedented scale of damage. They are also still helping communities recover from the devastating damage that Hurricane Helene unleashed across the Southeast two weeks ago.

Plus, there are the politics to contend with.

There are less than four weeks until Election Day, further raising the stakes for a successful federal government response to both Milton and Helene. The White House has also been alarmed by the flood of misinformation about storm recovery efforts that have been pushed by former President Donald Trump, his allies and some GOP elected officials.

“There was a time and a place when these storms were apolitical,” said one White House official. But currently, they said, “there are bad faith actors with big microphones spreading misinformation and hurting people trying to rebuild.”

A shop is boarded up in Orlando on October 8.

Coastal Floridians in Milton’s path are fleeing to another part of the hurricane’s track – and there are still hotel rooms available, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said.

“People are evacuating to Orlando. We’re going to be hit by a Category 1 hurricane, and yet people from the coast are evacuating over here because they’re going to be hit by a Category 3 or Category 4 hurricane,” Dyer said.

“We still have hotel rooms that are available here, so you can still evacuate to Orlando or from Orlando if you choose to do that,” the mayor said.

“But I would say by mid-afternoon, we’re going to start getting bands that will make it extremely dangerous to travel. So you’re about at the end of that window.”

Orlando emergency personnel are set to monitor the impacts of Milton overnight as the hurricane tears across the Florida peninsula, Dyer said.

“We are in that waiting, hunker-down stage,” the mayor said. “We have done everything we can to prepare. I’m very proud of our residents for taking this storm extremely seriously.”

Hurricane Milton is expected to deliver a life-threatening storm surge to much of the Florida coast, but the west-central Gulf Coast will be the epicenter.

It’s there that the National Hurricane Center is forecasting up to 15 feet of surge.

Storm surge occurs when a powerful storm’s winds literally push feet of water onshore. In the case of Milton, it will be pushing the Gulf of Mexico onshore.

The storm has made its way to Ft Myers, in the southwest part of Florida, with winds picking up and steady rain coming down.

CNN Correspondent Carlos Suarez is on the ground in Ft. Myers and keeping a close eye on water levels on the Caloosahatchee River.

Two years ago, Hurricane Ian made direct landfall in Lee County, unleashing a storm surge exceeding 10 feet. The Milton forecast is expecting a storm surge of anywhere between 8 to 12 feet.

Ft. Myers residents are preparing for what they expect to be a major flooding event expected to start overnight Wednesday night into Tuesday morning.

“As this hurricane moves through, as it treks its way north, we expect the water out here along the Caloosahatchee to rise, and at some point, once it starts creeping over, it will no doubt flood a good portion of downtown Ft. Myers,” Suarez said.

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Winds and rain start picking up in Ft. Myers ahead of Hurricane Milton landfall

00:49 - Source: CNN

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spans Tampa Bay and connects St. Petersburg and Bradenton was closed at about 11:30 a.m. ET due to winds from Hurricane Milton.

Pinellas County officials had said earlier that the four major bridges across Tampa Bay — three going east to Tampa, and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge going south — will close by Wednesday afternoon. The other three bridges remain open for now.

Hillsborough County Fire officials are joining the growing chorus of first responders warning they won’t be able to help residents who don’t leave evacuation zones now.

“In America, generally speaking, when you are in need, you call someone and somebody will show up to your aid,” Danny Alvarez, a spokesman for Hillsborough County Fire, told CNN. “During a hurricane, it’s a little different.”

Once hurricane winds pick up to 45 mph, officials won’t be able to respond, he said.

Officials in other Florida counties echoed the sentiment Wednesday morning, as they issued fervent pleas for people to take advantage of the final few hours they have to leave before Hurricane Milton hits.

Alvarez urged residents in evacuation zones to use one of the county’s 12 shelters, if needed.

“There’s still a window for you to find where you’re going to ride this storm out,” he said.

Air Force hurricane hunters traveled through the eye of Hurricane Milton on Tuesday, as they continued to track the storm’s path.

In video posted to X, the ocean is briefly visible as the plane travels above the storm’s eye wall.

Milton is now forecast to come ashore Wednesday night somewhere near or just south of Sarasota, according to the National Hurricane Center.

That’s a slight, but important shift in Milton’s projected landfall from earlier this morning. The hurricane’s landfall point has shifted south by 10 miles since this morning and 16 miles south since Tuesday morning.

Every mile matters in terms of Milton’s worst impacts.

“Since storm surge forecasts are highly sensitive to the exact track, this means that… storm surge heights across the Tampa Bay region and south may vary widely,” the hurricane center cautioned this morning.

“However, the risk of devastating storm surge still exists across much of the west-central and southwest coast of Florida.”

Subtle shifts in Milton’s track could continue.

“We would like to emphasize that Milton’s exact landfall location is not possible to predict even at this time, particularly if the hurricane wobbles during the day and into this evening,” the hurricane center cautioned late this morning.

Tornadoes are tearing through parts of Florida this morning as Milton’s rainbands come ashore.

Multiple confirmed tornadoes have already impacted parts of South Florida this morning and the threat isn’t going away any time soon.

“This is a very favorable environment for quick-moving and dangerous tornadoes,” the National Weather Service warned.

Vice President Kamala Harris walks to board Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on October 7.

Vice President Kamala Harris is warning that any company or person engaging in price gouging will be held “accountable” in a new statement released by her office Wednesday.

President Joe Biden also called on companies “not to engage in price gouging” during an event on Tuesday while Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that his office is taking “all allegations of airline price-gouging seriously.”

“We are keeping a close eye on flights in and out of areas affected by Hurricane Milton to make sure airlines are not charging excessively increasing fares,” Buttigieg posted on X.

Harris is expected to virtually join Biden at 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday for a briefing on the administration’s efforts to prepare for Hurricane Milton and relief efforts related to Hurricane Helene.

John Fedor, of New Jersey, waits for transportation help to get to a shelter after his flight was canceled on October 8, at the Tampa International Airport.

Hurricane Milton is causing flight cancellations nationwide today — and cancellations on Thursday are already rising.

Wednesday is the worst day for flight cancellations in nearly two months, according to data from flight-tracking site FlightAware.

It shows airlines in the US have canceled more than 1,800 flights on Wednesday and nearly 1,800 flights on Thursday.

The cancellations are largely driven by airport closures in the path of Hurricane Milton. Orlando International Airport closed at 8 a.m. ET Wednesday morning. The Sarasota Bradenton, St. Petersburg-Clearwater, and Southwest Florida airports closed Tuesday evening. Tampa International Airport closed Tuesday morning.

The storm has affected airlines with heavy Florida schedules the most. Both Spirit Airlines and JetBlue have canceled roughly 20% of their Wednesday schedules. Southwest Airlines has canceled more than one in 10 of its flights on Wednesday.

Downtown Tampa is seen desolate ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton on Wednesday, October 9.

Milton now has winds of 145 mph and is moving northeast at 17 mph, per the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane is now located 190 miles from Tampa and 160 miles from Fort Myers.

The storm will weaken more today as it approaches landfall and interacts with a frontal boundary, but its impact will not: life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and dangerous flooding rain are all incoming to Florida.

However, since Milton only has another 12 hours or so over water, the hurricane center expects Milton to be a major hurricane at landfall. Major hurricanes are at least Category 3 or stronger.

President Joe Biden speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, on October 4.

President Joe Biden said in an interview that aired Wednesday he is most concerned about “misinformation” in the wake of Hurricane Helene and the incoming Hurricane Milton.

“There’s a lot of folks out there spreading lies about what we are not doing, that things are not going well. That we are not responding — when in fact we’ve been completely responsive, and we’ve been ahead of the game,” Biden told The Grio’s April Ryan.

The Biden administration has been outspoken in criticizing the spread of misinformation in the wake of Helene, taking aim at former President Donald Trump for comments falsely claiming money earmarked for disaster aid has been given to migrants.

The president’s comments also echo what members of his administration have said earlier on Wednesday, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told CNN that there is a “massive misinformation problem, and this is something that actively harms the ability of responders to do their job.”

Milton is forecast to make landfall overnight Wednesday while parts of the region are still recovering from Hurricane Helene.

Residents of Florida’s Anna Maria Island appear to have heeded warnings from officials to leave, as police in the island’s Holmes Beach city found no one remaining while doing a final check Wednesday morning before leaving the island themselves, the city’s police chief said.

“It was ghost town when we just left the island,” Holmes Beach Police Chief William Tokajer told CNN. “The island has been secured. … We did a final pass through, and I didn’t see anybody that was still there.”

Tokajer expressed his relief over residents having listened, after offering a grave message for those who would have chosen to stay during the storm to “write your name and Social Security number on your leg.”

“We’re off island until it the storm passes, so there’ll be no fire, no police, no EMS, no first responders, nobody to answer the 911 calls for service that come out there. We’ve locked down the island, and we’ll return after the storm passes and check for safety before we let people out,” Tokajer said.

“Our island was devastated by Hurricane Helene, and now we’re getting a gut punch with Milton. It’s not going to be good. We do have a lot of debris,” the police chief said, noting that remaining debris piles from Helene could become dangerous as storm surge re-floods the area.

The exceptionally warm water of the Gulf of Mexico that supercharged deadly Hurricane Helene last month was made between 200 and 500 times more likely by human-caused climate change, which also ramped up the hurricane’s wind and rain, according to a new scientific analysis.

Climate change worsened the extreme wind and torrential rain unleashed by Helene, making wind speeds on the Florida coast 11% more intense and increasing rainfall by about 10%, according to the study published Wednesday by the World Weather Attribution, a network of scientists that calculates the role of climate change in extreme weather events using real world data and climate models.

The analysis comes as Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall — less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene — as a major hurricane on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the water is anywhere from 3.5 to 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it should be at this time of the year, according to hurricane expert Brian McNoldy.

Helene, which also made landfall in Florida as a deadly Category 4 hurricane at the end of September, carved a 500-mile path of destruction across six states, causing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 230 people.

Warm oceans provide a huge source of energy for storms to strengthen and grow, and the water Helene passed over before making landfall was around 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

The same Gulf water that boosted Helene has already acted like rocket fuel for Milton. An early analysis from the nonprofit research group Climate Central showed the at-or-near record-breaking ocean temperatures that fueled Milton’s explosion was made 400 to 800 times more likely to occur by the climate crisis.

Read more on the analysis here.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency Headquarters, in Washington, DC, is seen on October 8.

FEMA is down to $11 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund after spending about $9 billion of its recently appropriated money in a little over a week, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters Wednesday.

The rapid spend reflects how many mounting disasters the agency is responding to as major Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida.

Congress recently gave FEMA about $20 billion worth of funding to tap into as it responds to major Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Criswell said about $9 billion of that has already been spent since the agency came out of immediate needs funding on Tuesday, Oct. 1.

“In August, we had paused obligations for recovery projects for all of those other open disasters,” Criswell said. “Once I was given the authority to spend against the budget, we began to reimburse communities for their recovery projects, in addition to the spending that we are doing for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.”

Criswell said that about $7-8 billion has been spent reimbursing other states for those earlier disasters, and the remaining balance has been spent on Helene and Milton recovery and response.

“This is the most open disasters that I have seen with FEMA, and it’s because we’re seeing an increase in the number of events,” Criswell said. “We had an incredibly busy tornado season earlier this year. We had catastrophic and historic levels of flooding across many states this spring as well. We’ve had wildfires across much of the West.”

She added FEMA is constantly assessing the balance of its disaster recovery fund and could have to ask Congress for more money sooner than it anticipated – although Criswell didn’t say exactly when that might be.

More than 100 separate disasters each costing at least $1 billion dollars have impacted all parts of the United States over the last 5 years, NOAA climatologist Adam Smith told CNN.

“In the 1980’s there were about 3 months between billion-dollar disaster events, but over the last decade we are experiencing them every 3 weeks,” Smith told CNN in an email.

A man fills up gas containers in Tampa, Florida, on October 8.

Gas station outages are increasing in the Florida metro areas most exposed to Hurricane Milton on Wednesday, according to GasBuddy, a platform that tracks gas prices and availability.

In the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, 59.2% of the gas stations were reported to have no gas as of 9:36 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to GasBuddy.

In addition, 39.1% of the gas stations in Sarasota and 35.2% in Fort Myers/Naples also had no fuel, GasBuddy reports. Other areas suffering significant outages include Gainesville (31.8%) and Orlando/Daytona Beach (26.6%).

Across the state, GasBuddy said 23% of Florida gas stations had no fuel.

Remember: Many Floridians who are evacuating have been heading north, filling up with gas as they go. Others who decide to ride out the severe weather at home are also crowding the pumps, filling gas tanks to power their generators if they lose electricity for an extended period of time.

What the governor is saying: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state still has plenty of reserves of fuel, including 1.1 million gallons of gasoline on hand.

“There is no, right now, fuel shortage. However, demand has been extraordinary high and some gas stations have run out,” DeSantis said during a press conference Wednesday morning.

Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks on state preparedness ahead of Hurricane Milton at the Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee, Florida, on Wednesday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the latest public official to warn residents in the path of a hurricane to ignore online misinformation.

Federal and local officials responding to Hurricane Helene say they have been swamped by a flood of false information about the relief response.

While DeSantis declined to weigh in on debunked rumors about other states, he knocked down an online rumor that FEMA would prevent Florida evacuees from returning home after the storm is over.

“We live in an era where, if you put out crap online, you can get a lot of people to share it, and you can monetize that,” DeSantis said. “That’s just the way it is. But if you’re hearing something that’s just outrageous, just know that in the state of Florida, none of that stuff would ever fly.”

Sanibel, Florida, officials urged residents who remain in the city to “please leave as soon as possible” as the barrier island braces for tropical storm-force winds to arrive at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Souza said that Lee County is continuing to accept residents at its shelters, “and there’s still plenty of capacity.” Residents can find out more information by visiting the county website, Souza said, or they can call the United Way Emergency Hotline number by dialing 211.

Souza also discussed the potential impacts of the impending storm.

“Rainfall has expectations has increased, and we are now expecting 6 to 12 inches,” Souza said, adding that storm surge is the main concern.

“Yesterday, the National Hurricane Center, after 5 p.m. update announced that the storm surge for Lee County was anticipated to be between 8 and 12 feet, which is the storm surge we experienced for Hurricane Ian,” Souza said, noting that surge will peak Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning.

Milton’s winds have reached part of Florida this morning and gusts of 40 to 55 mph are currently pounding a large portion of the Keys.

A few weather observation stations at the coast near Naples and Englewood have recently recorded gusts just under tropical storm-force (less than 39 mph).

Milton’s winds will cover more of the coast in the next few hours and stretch deeper inland later this afternoon.

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Video shows tropical storm-force gusts pounding Southernmost Point in Key West

- Source: CNN

There is still time to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Milton, Hillsborough County officials said during a press conference Wednesday morning.

Close to 10,000 people are sheltering across the Tampa-area, according to Tim Dudley, the county’s emergency management director.

“You all should be somewhere safe by now, but if you’re not, you need to get there now,” Dudley said. The county has opened three additional shelters and several of them still have space.

Hurricane Milton could be the storm of the century for Tampa, Mayor Jane Castor said, but crews are working overtime to ensure safety.

More than 14,000 cubic yards – 7,000 pickup truckloads – of Helene debris that could turn into dangerous projectiles due to Milton’s winds has been picked up, officials said.

“Solid waste has been picked up in two weeks what would take over three months,” Castor said. Crews will be out picking up debris until 3 p.m. or until conditions allow, she said.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue is equipped with double the staff than normal, including 12 tactical search and rescue teams, according to Chief Jason Dougherty. The agency will also deploy four SHERP vehicles – specialized vehicles that can drive on land and through high water – to assist with water rescues.

An image taken from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick on Wednesday shows the size and organization of Hurricane Milton.

“We flew over Hurricane Milton again today about an hour ago,” Dominick wrote on Twitter just before 10 a.m. ET. “It was not as symmetric as yesterday but it appeared larger today.”

Dominick also posted a timelapse of the storm, as seen from a window on the space station.

People arrive to shelter at Buffalo Creek Middle School in Bradenton, Florida, on October 9.

About 147,000 residents and visitors have been asked to evacuate Manatee County, and “we’re actually seeing a lot of movement,” according to Chief of Emergency Management Matt Myers.

The county, on the south side of Tampa Bay, could get pummeled by more than 10 feet of life-threatening storm surge, he said.

About 6,000 people have moved into Manatee County’s emergency shelters, and there’s room left, Myers said late Wednesday morning.

But time is running out: “We want people in a shelter, in their standby area, no later than” 1 p.m. ET, Myers said.

The Florida National Guard is already making preparations for search and rescue operations once Hurricane Milton moves through the state, the governor said Wednesday.

DeSantis said there are 9,000 Guardsmen deployed, one-third of which have come from other states.

Members of the Florida Army National Guard check for any remaining residents in nearly deserted Bradenton Beach, where piles of debris from Hurricane Helene still sit outside damaged homes, ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, Tuesday, October 8, 2024, on Anna Maria Island, Florida.

Twenty-six search and rescue teams are in place, the governor said.

“They are currently embedded in the potential impact sites along the west coast to begin immediate rescue operations as soon as the storm passes,” said DeSantis.

People fills sandbags ahead of Hurricane Milton at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, on October 7.

As many as 500,000 homes in the Tampa and Sarasota metro areas are at risk of storm surge flooding from Hurricane Milton, according to analytics firm CoreLogic.

Those homes have a combined reconstruction value of $123 billion, CoreLogic estimates. The projection assumes that Hurricane Milton will make landfall as a Category 3 storm.

If landfall is made as a Category 4 storm, CoreLogic estimates that just over 700,000 homes in the Tampa and Sarasota metro areas would be at risk for storm surge flooding, with a combined reconstruction value of $174 billion.

Hurricane Milton is expected to be among the most expensive US storms on record, likely causing tens of billions of dollars in damage.

Milton’s outer rainbands have produced at least two tornadoes this morning with more likely to come throughout the day.

At least one of these was an incredibly dangerous tornado.

“At 1015 AM EDT, a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado was located near Big Cypress Seminole Reservation, or 22 miles southeast of Montura, moving north at 25 mph,” the National Weather Service warned Wednesday.

“You are in a life-threatening situation,” the service continued. “Flying debris may be deadly to those caught without shelter.

While the tornado is moving through a low population area, it did briefly cross over a section of Interstate-75, the service confirmed. Another confirmed tornado also crossed over the same roadway, but farther east.

More than 12 million people in Florida are under a tornado watch today.

Officials in Pinellas County announced plans to close the major bridges crossing Tampa Bay on Wednesday afternoon when winds from Hurricane Milton begin to lash the area.

Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater on Florida’s west coast, has four major bridges that stretch across Tampa Bay – three going east to Tampa and one heading south to Bradenton and Sarasota.

“Anyone planning to evacuate across one of the bridges should do so now,” the county said in a statement Wednesday morning. “The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), City of Tampa and City of Clearwater will close the bridges when conditions become too dangerous for travel.”

Tropical storm-force winds are expected to begin by this afternoon, officials said.

When will the bridges reopen? That depends.

“Authorities will reopen the bridges as soon as it is safe to do so, but Hurricane Milton may cause damages requiring structural repairs so reopening may be delayed,” the county said.

Two things are keeping Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Chad Chronister up at night as Hurricane Milton barrels towards Tampa – water and debris.

“There’s nowhere for this water to go, so you’re going to see a lot of flash flooding along with the potential storm surge. And then add a bunch of wind on that,” Chronister said. “That’s what keeps me up at night.”

Milton could bring up to 12 feet of storm surge to parts of the Tampa Bay area, which would break records of 5 to 6 feet set two weeks ago by Helene, leaving authorities scrambling to clean up the debris left behind before Milton hits.

The sheriff said crews have done their best to clear Helene’s wreckage, but contractors brought in to clean up the debris “dropped the ball.”

“When we talk about what keeps me up at night, it’s not just the flash flood and the floodwaters. We were only obstructed by the water [after Helene]. We’re going to be obstructed by a lot more debris. Can you imagine, we’re doing these rescues in an airboat, our amphibious vehicles and we hit a washer machine, or this debris becomes weaponized when these [wind] speeds pick up?” Chronister said. “A lot to worry about.”

Milton’s powerful winds are more expansive than they were on Tuesday morning, but these winds will grow even more leading up to and after landfall in Florida Wednesday night.

Tropical storm-force winds are blowing as far as 125 miles from Milton’s center – an increase of about 20 miles from 24 hours ago.

By landfall, Milton’s tropical storm-force winds will be 85 miles wider and reach about 210 miles from its center. That’s far enough to bring strong winds through Florida’s Space Coast while Milton’s center is on the state’s west coast.

As Milton loses strength while tracking across Florida, its wind field will grow again and could reach up to 280 miles from its center. Widespread damaging winds could cause serious issues for the state’s power infrastructure and lead to considerable outages.

Pinellas County residents fill sandbags at John Chestnut Park in Palm Harbor, Florida, on October 6.

“If you decide not to leave now, you’re going to be stuck in your home – or what’s left of your home – for days,” Pinellas County Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins warned residents who remained in evacuation zones Wednesday morning.

“For those of you that were punched by Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout,” she said.

The county was hit hard by Helene, but this time officials believe the impact will pull first responders off the roads, leaving remaining residents to fend for themselves.

“I cannot think of a more terrifying situation to be in than to be in the dark, in a house, with water rapidly rising and the winds whipping around you,” she said.

Perkins painted a grim picture of what Hurricane Milton is expected to do to the county. Tropical storm force winds are expected to start mid-afternoon, and residents who haven’t left evacuation areas by then will be on their own, she stressed.

“There will come a point when first responders get pulled off of the road, whether it’s for flooding, for storm surge or winds,” she said.

By dusk, bridges will likely be closed due to dangerous winds, she noted.

“The brunt of this storm is going to come overnight, and it’s going to be scary,” Perkins said.

Even those outside of the evacuation zones should plan for an interior room or closet in their home where they can retreat “if things start to get really, really bad,” she added.

Perkins urged people to use the county’s shelters, which are currently housing about 8,000 people and have capacity for up to 20,000.

The window to evacuate before Hurricane Milton hits Florida is closing, and those who don’t leave won’t be able to count on authorities to help until after the dangers have passed, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Chad Chronister warned Wednesday.

The official forecast calls for Milton to be a major hurricane at landfall with sustained wind speeds near 130 mph, arriving on Florida’s Gulf Coast during the early morning hours on Thursday, but tropical storm conditions are expected to begin around midday Wednesday.

“The winds just get too dangerous. We’re going to have to shut down all the bridges,” Chronister said.

After winds reach 40 mph, not only do the bridges shut down, but so does the ability for emergency crews to respond.

Still, the sheriff said he is happy to see many people taking the warnings seriously.

“I’m happy you’ve seen the highways that are full, the grocery stores, the lines were long there, and gas stations, people heeded the warning, and for that, I’m very grateful and proud of this community.”

Hours before Milton’s projected landfall, the hurricane’s outer bands were already hurling seawater over the heads of tourists at one of Florida’s most famous landmarks.

The Southernmost Point Buoy in Key West, which purportedly marks the southernmost spot in the continental US, was repeatedly deluged Tuesday morning by strong waves crashing over land.

Webcam footage provided by Two Oceans Digital showed tourists posing for photos next to the colorful buoy before intense waves snuck up from behind, dumping seawater on top of their heads.

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Here's what the southernmost point of Florida looks like

00:57 - Source: CNN

Officials in Pinellas County, Florida, are not mincing words for residents in their latest emergency alert: “GET OUT NOW. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO GET OUT BEFORE THE STORM.”

The county has issued mandatory evacuation notices for evacuation zones A, B and C, in addition to all mobile home parks in the county.

“Deadly storm surge is expected,” the alert also says.

An apartment complex damaged in Hurricane Helene in the Treasure Island section of St. Petersburg, Florida, on October 8, ahead of Hurricane Milton's expected landfall.

On Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. ET, Milton’s landfall forecast took the hurricane into the southern portion of the Tampa Bay area by late Wednesday. Now, it is expected to come ashore 20 to 25 miles to the south, closer to the Sarasota area, as a major hurricane — which means at least a Category 3.

That shift could mark the difference between a worst-case storm scenario for the Tampa Bay area and a chance at avoiding complete catastrophe. The storm surge forecast for Tampa Bay was lowered slightly Wednesday morning from up to 15 feet to up to 12 feet because of the latest track.

Still a very dangerous storm: Despite the hurricane weakening, it is growing in size. Over the past 24 hours, the tropical-storm force winds expanded from 20 miles to 125 miles from its center. This means its disastrous impacts will be felt over a much larger area. Tropical-storm force winds are expected to cover the entire width of the Florida peninsula.

The outer bands of the storm have already arrived, and tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain will come in force by the afternoon. Florida officials said the window to evacuate now very slim and urged residents to “get out” while there was still time Wednesday morning.

Here’s what else we know, so far:

Preparations for Hurricane Milton are wrapping up before the storm’s landfall overnight, Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Barbara Tripp says.

“I’ve been in Florida all my life, and I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude,” Tripp told CNN’s Kate Bolduan Wednesday morning.

Once the storm reaches maximum sustained winds, emergency responders will not be able to help residents who did not evacuate, Tripp warned.

“We want to be there to help you, but you need to help us by evacuating,” Tripp said. Those with medical conditions need to go to a shelter, she added.

Tripp said fire crews are prepared to assist with rescues once it’s safe to do so and teams are providing extra support at Tampa General Hospital, which is staying open during the storm.

The hospital has set up an AquaFence once again outside the facility as Hurricane Milton approaches. AquaFence technology is meant to guard against storm surges up to 15 feet high and designed to withstand  130 mph winds.

“The AquaFence did help with Hurricane Helene,” Tripp said. “We have been working with them to make sure they are taken care of.”

Milton’s outer bands are already spreading across Florida this morning, and conditions will continue to deteriorate throughout the day, particularly by the afternoon, with conditions getting significantly worse during the evening hours.

Here is a timeline for key areas along Milton’s path:

Tampa

Sarasota

Orlando

Fort Myers

Milton is a powerful Category 4 hurricane this morning as it tracks ever closer to Florida.

In the satellite loop below, Milton’s outer rainbands – denoted by bubbly clouds – are moving onto the Florida coast and over western Cuba.

People fill up gas containers at a station ahead of Hurricane Milton's expected landfall in Lakeland, Florida on October 8.

Nearly one in four gas stations in Florida have run out of fuel as of Wednesday morning, according to GasBuddy.

As of 8 a.m. ET, GasBuddy reports that 22.8% of Florida’s gas stations are out of gas. That amounts to more than 1,700 of the state’s roughly 7,500 gas stations.

This is a slight increase from the 21.6% of gas stations in Florida that were suffering outages as of 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday, according to GasBuddy.

Gas station outages were much higher Tuesday evening in areas facing evacuation orders, such as Tampa and Fort Myers.

Remember: Many Floridians who are evacuating have been heading north, filling up with gas as they go. Others who decide to ride out the severe weather at home are also crowding the pumps, filling gas tanks to power their generators if they lose electricity for an extended period of time. To help combat shortages, the state is distributing fuel from its own reserves, which include more than 100,000 gallons of gasoline.

Milton continued to defy expectations yesterday by tracking much farther south than originally forecast and refusing to start moving to the northeast.

Every hour Milton didn’t turn to the north subtly shifted the hurricane’s ultimate forecast track south along Florida’s west central Gulf Coast.

On Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. ET, Milton’s landfall forecast took the hurricane into the southern portion of the Tampa Bay area by late Wednesday. Now, the hurricane is expected to come ashore 20 to 25 miles to the south, closer to the Sarasota area.

That shift could mark the difference between a catastrophic, worst case storm scenario for the Tampa Bay area and a chance at avoiding complete catastrophe. The storm surge forecast for Tampa Bay was lowered slightly Wednesday morning from up to 15 feet to up to 12 feet because of the latest track.

Milton finally started to turn to the northeast overnight, but small shifts in its track are possible through landfall and could have major consequences. Interaction with land and various atmospheric factors can cause a hurricane to wobble or shift its track seemingly without warning, so all locations in the cone should prepare for a potential landfall.

The National Hurricane Center urged Wednesday morning to “not focus on the exact landfall point as the average error at 24 hours is about 40 miles.”

Officials are warning that time is running out to evacuate before Hurricane Milton reaches Florida, but some residents have already made the decision to stay. Bridgit Stone-Budd is a resident of Sanibel Island and lived through Hurricane Ian, which devastated the community.

Destroyed buildings are seen after Hurricane Ian caused widespread destruction in Sanibel Island, Florida, on October 1, 2022.

“I think the most important thing is we know we won’t be able to get back,” Stone-Budd told CNN’s John Berman on Wednesday, explaining her decision to stay. “That’s the number one reason.”

The city of Sanibel issued an evacuation order, and people who choose to stay are now under a 24-hour curfew. Stone-Budd’s home is on raised supports and did not flood in previous hurricanes, but she acknowledges that’s no guarantee of safety.

“I feel safe up here on our stilted home, but if we were to lose a pylon and the house wasn’t sturdy, that scares me the most,” she said.

A new tornado watch has been issued for more than 12 million people across central and southern Florida until 9 pm EDT because of Hurricane Milton. This includes Tampa, Miami, Cape Coral, and Key West.

“Supercells in the outer rain bands of Hurricane Milton will pose a threat for several tornadoes today across the central and southern Florida Peninsula,” the Storm Prediction Center said.

Milton’s highest storm surge could just miss the Tampa Bay area, but record-breaking levels are still expected, according to a new forecast from the National Hurricane Center.

Up to 12 feet of life-threatening storm surge could inundate parts of the Tampa Bay area. While this is down slightly from the previously forecast 15 feet, it would still break records of 5 to 6 feet just set by Helene.

Fifteen feet of surge is still possible for a portion of the central coast between Boca Grande and Anna Maria Island. The Fort Myers and Cape Coral area could record up to 12 feet of storm surge while several feet of surge is possible elsewhere along the state’s west coast.

Milton’s highest surge is directly tied to the storm’s track, so no area should let their guard down. Any wobbles in the hurricane’s track today could shift the location of the most life-threatening surge

The road to recovery will be long after Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida overnight, Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi said in a Wednesday morning update.

“This is going to be an intense disaster for Sarasota County,” Tapfumaneyi said in a video posted to Facebook. “This is the time to take action and we ask you to do so in the next couple of hours, you still have time.”

Basic infrastructure may be impacted for days, Tapfumaneyi added.

“We are going to be working with our private sector partners to get telephone communications back online,” Tapfumaneyi said. “Power is going to likely be out in most of, if not all of the county; we may lose water.”

The storm surge is going to be deadly, Tapfumaneyi told CNN’s John Berman on Wednesday morning. Very few people who chose to stay on Sarasota’s barrier islands will survive, she added.

Individuals living in those areas only have a few hours to get to safety, Tapfumaneyi said.

“I am an emergency manager, but I am also a mother, a wife, a daughter – and I’m pleading with people from that perspective: Do not keep your loved ones or yourself in these A, B, or C evacuation areas.”

Mary Wojciechowski and Mitch Pacyna are seen in an undated photo.

As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida, Mary Wojciechowski can’t escape the vivid memory of her neighbor’s roof collapsing onto her partner, 74-year-old Mitch Pacyna, as he disappeared into the storm surge of Hurricane Ian in 2022.

“Every day, every night, you think about it,” Wojciechowski told CNN. “You dream about it. You wake up thinking about it.”

Wojciechowski, 66, swam to safety with her dog, Lulu, as the storm destroyed her Fort Myers Beach home and all her belongings. She and Lulu now live in a townhouse a few miles away in Fort Myers.

Just two years after Hurricane Ian killed at least 148 Floridians, Wojciechowski is preparing for another powerful storm, which could pound the Fort Myers area. She’s stocking up on food and water and prepping her home as best she can. She’s hopeful she can safely ride it out on the second floor.

“I have to stay strong,” Wojciechowski told CNN. “I have no choice, right? You survive or you die. That’s it … I think Mitch will watch over me. He’ll make sure we’re OK.”

Alison Rodney’s aunt, Marti Campbell, drowned in the same Fort Myers Beach neighborhood as Mitch Pacyna. She and her aunt texted just hours before the storm surge swallowed the 74-year-old’s home.

Rodney, who lives in a more elevated section of Seminole, Florida, less than a mile from the Gulf of Mexico, is sheltering at least six family members who are fleeing nearby evacuation zones as Hurricane Milton approaches.

They’ve stocked up on food and supplies. She expects the family will lose power and will likely hear the evacuation sirens blaring from the coastline, as they did during Hurricane Helene last month.

And she anticipates they’ll be talking about Marti as well as the vulnerable seniors caught in another brutal storm.

Parts of Florida could see up to 10 to 15 feet of life-threatening storm surge from Hurricane Milton, according to the National Hurricane Center.

This video depicts what that looks like:

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Here's how high Milton's storm surge could get

01:29 - Source: CNN

What exactly is storm surge?: “A storm surge is a rise in water level caused by a strong storm’s wind pushing water on-shore,” according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller. “The wind literally piles up the ocean water and pushes it on the land.”

Storm surge accounts for nearly half of all hurricane-related fatalities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Storm surge also can exacerbate flooding. As the water piles up along the coast, rivers and streams that typically drain into the ocean can become clogged farther upstream, forcing water levels to rise.

That water doesn’t just leave. Depending on how much water was pushed ashore and the area’s watershed, it may hang around, causing further damage to communities.

Read more about storm surge here.

Traffic flows east Tuesday along Interstate 4 as residents continue to follow evacuation orders ahead of Hurricane Milton.

Usually with a hurricane headed his way, Jake Keglor would stay put at home: 3 miles from the coast, in evacuation Zone C.

But last month’s deadly Hurricane Helene upended his usual thinking

Friends who’d at first been blase on social media about that storm suddenly were “not so chill anymore: Their car’s halfway underwater,” he told CNN on Tuesday.

So, fully 40 hours before Hurricane Milton’s predicted landfall, Keglor – with his 14-year-old gray tabby cat, Sugs – was behind the wheel on Interstate 4, their home in Seminole, near St. Petersburg, in the rear view.

“Gas is the biggest issue,” Keglor said Tuesday as he navigated the 100-mile trek northeast to Orlando the day after his parents spent eight hours in evacuation gridlock. “All of the pumps have the bags on them” because they’re empty.

As for traffic, it also was “not great,” he said, even with “all the shoulder lanes … open.”

Still, he was glad to be leaving the Tampa Bay area. “Statistically, I guess we haven’t really been hit directly in 100 years,” he said, “and this seems to be it.”

READ THE FULL STORY: ‘Truthfully, only a fool would stay.’ Floridians go inland for Milton

People visit the beach as storm clouds hang pass overhead before Hurricane Milton's arrival on October 8, in Fort Myers, Florida.

Milton weakened slightly Wednesday morning over the Gulf of Mexico and now has winds of 155 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

That brings it just 2 mph below the Category 5 threshold. Milton will continue to lose some strength today but will remain a formidable major hurricane at landfall in Florida overnight tonight.

Parts of the city are mostly empty as Hurricane Milton approaches on October 8, in Tampa, Florida.

The opportunity for people on Florida’s west coast to get out before the effects of Hurricane Milton are seen is rapidly closing, according to the sheriff of Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa.

“This is the 11th hour. If you’re in an evacuation zone, the time to get out is now,” Sheriff Chad Chronister told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Wednesday morning.

The sheriff said more than 1,000 rescues were conducted in his county after Hurricane Helene, and they’re preparing for more.

“We only have to look back two weeks ago. We’re still healing from this storm and recovering,” he said.

This satellite image, taken at 5:31 a.m. ET on October 9, 2024, shows Hurricane Milton as it heads toward Florida.

Hurricane Milton is still a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 160 mph, according to the 5 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm is located about 300 miles southwest of Tampa, moving northeast at 14 mph.

“On the forecast track, the center of Milton will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico today, make landfall along the west-central coast of Florida late tonight or early Thursday morning, and move off the east coast of Florida over the western Atlantic Ocean Thursday afternoon,” the NHC said.

The official forecast now calls for Milton to be a Category 4 at landfall with sustained wind speeds near 130 mph.

Outer bands have already begun impacting Florida, and conditions are expected to deteriorate across the state through the day. Several tornado warnings have already been issued for portions of South Florida and more are expected throughout the day as the potential for severe weather increases across the entire peninsula.

“Hurricane conditions are expected in the hurricane warning area across Florida beginning this evening through early Thursday,” the NHC said. “Tropical storm conditions are expected to begin in the warning area on the east coast of Florida tonight and along the Georgia coast on Thursday.”

The tropical storm watch has been upgraded to a tropical storm warning for the Georgia coast, from Altamaha Sound near Brunswick to the Savannah River.

Commuters drive east on Interstate 75 from Florida's west coast, ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, on October 8, 2024.

Florida officials continue to urge residents that haven’t evacuated yet to leave the area or seek shelter as Category 5 Hurricane Milton makes its way towards the state.

Jodie Fiske, Public Safety Director for Manatee County, told CNN’s Rosemary Church that as of Wednesday morning there are about 5,000 residents in shelters in the county.

Nine shelters are currently open, with more on standby and Fiske says the current shelters are at about 50% capacity.

Manatee County is home to Bradenton and is just south of Tampa.

In Pasco County, officials are sending the same message to residents and urging them to seek shelter if they haven’t already.

Colin Burns, Deputy Incident Commander in Pasco County, told CNN that the county is housing about 3,000 residents in shelters as of Wednesday morning.

There are six shelters in the area at “quite high” capacity, according to Burns, but county officials have 10 additional shelters on standby.

“Do not hesitate,” Burns said, “If you can get out, get out.”

Crews in the area have worked tirelessly to clean up debris left from Hurricane Helene and will continue to work while the weather permits them to do so, according to Burns.

Pasco County is located just north of Tampa and is home to New Port Richey and Land O’ Lakes.

A hospital worker walks by as a flood wall is put into place around Tampa General Hospital on Davis Islands on October 8, 2024.

Tampa General Hospital is determined to stay open as Hurricane Milton barrels through and is taking several steps to protect its facilities, including erecting a flood barrier around its campus on Davis Islands.

The flood barrier, known as an AquaFence, is a water-impermeable barrier that is made to withstand storm surge up to 15 feet above sea level, the hospital said in a release. The fence successfully protected the facility from Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters about two weeks ago.

The Davis Islands location is also equipped with a water well and an on-site energy plant built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.

At its main campus and three other facilities, Tampa General has stockpiled five days worth of food, linens and other supplies, and placed staff who are trained in emergency management.

“As soon as the storm passes, and the roads are safe, additional providers and staff will return to work to relieve teams and continue supporting response and recovery efforts,” the hospital system said.

Hurricane Milton will ramp up in intensity throughout the day Wednesday, placing several cities at risk of experiencing tornadoes, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) warns.

More than 3 million people across parts of central and southern Florida are now at an enhanced risk (or Level 3 of 5) for severe thunderstorms, including the cities of Fort Myers, Sarasota and Melbourne, the SPC said.

Several tornadoes – including those rated EF 2 or higher – are possible in this region.

“As Hurricane Milton moves across the Florida Peninsula today, several tornadoes will be likely across parts of the central and southern Florida Peninsula, into the Florida Keys,” warns the SPC. It added, “A strong tornado or two could occur during the mid to late afternoon.”

A slight risk for tornadoes (or Level 2 of 5) surrounds the enhanced risk area and spreads from southern Florida to central Florida. The area is home to more than 10 million people and includes Miami, Tampa and Orlando. Tornadoes are the main threat.

Hurricane Helene spawned more than 30 tornadoes in the Southeast, but Milton’s tornado threat will likely be contained to Florida.

A boarded up business stands beside a deserted street in an evacuation zone on Florida's Anna Maria Island on October 8, 2024.

Tropical storm conditions are expected to begin on the west coast of Florida around midday Wednesday, spreading across the peninsula and reaching the east coast at night, the National Hurricane Center warns.

On Thursday, tropical storm conditions are expected in portions of the northwestern Bahamas. They are also possible on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts on Thursday, the NHC said.

Just one day ago, Hurricane Milton’s tropical storm-force winds extended out 80 miles from the center. Now, the storm’s winds spread 140 miles from the center.

This trend is expected to continue until landfall, with Milton expected to bring tropical storm-force winds to much of the Florida Peninsula throughout landfall.

Conditions will deteriorate across the state through the day Wednesday as Milton approaches, becoming widespread around midday. Hurricane conditions are expected in some areas beginning Wednesday evening through early Thursday and are possible in other areas on Thursday.

Hurricane Milton is still a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 160 mph, according to the 2 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center. The storm is located about 360 miles southwest of Tampa, moving northeast at 12 mph.