The Latest: Tornado watches in effect as Category 4 storm approaches Florida

Hurricane Milton dropped to a Category 4 early Wednesday as it churns toward Florida's west coast. The National Hurricane Center had predicted it would likely weaken, but remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday.

The Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 million people, faced the possibility of widespread destruction after avoiding direct hits from major hurricanes for more than a century.

Follow AP’s coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes.

Here’s the latest:

Gov. DeSantis: ‘If you are in the path of this storm, you are most likely going to lose power’

More than 50,000 power line workers from as far away as California are now in the state and gearing up to help restore electricity, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.

“If you are in the path of this storm, you are most likely going to lose power,” DeSantis said at a Wednesday afternoon briefing in Lake City. “All these folks are going to be brought to bear to get the power back on as soon as possible.”

President Biden, Vice President Harris and top federal officials warn that Milton could cause historic devastation

“It’s looking like the storm of the century,” Biden said during a Wednesday briefing.

Although evacuating can be difficult, he urged residents to listen to local officials, calling it “literally a matter of life and death.”

The briefing, which was held at the White House complex, was intended to highlight safety concerns and demonstrate that the administration was prepared for Milton.

“Many of you I know are tough, and you’ve ridden out these hurricanes before,” Harris said. “This one is going to be different.”

Language barriers and lack of money are a matter of life and death with Milton approaching

Hurricane Milton is expected to unleash its greatest force over hundreds of thousands of immigrants who don’t speak English, most of them Latin Americans harvesting oranges and tomatoes in the fields along Florida’s I-4 corridor, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning hotel rooms and working construction.

For the Spanish speakers and a smaller number of African refugees , new lives in the U.S. were already a daily struggle because of the language barrier and lack of resources.

Milton has turned those obstacles into a matter of life and death.

Florida is home to at least 4.8 million immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. After Miami, Orlando and Tampa are the metropolitan areas with the highest number of immigrants, the majority coming from Latin American countries such as Mexico and Venezuela.

Immigration advocates and consulate officials have been reaching out to them in Tampa, Orlando and central Florida towns to help with evacuation plans and otherwise prepare. They’re sharing information in Spanish, French and African languages and making calls, sending text messages and sharing social media posts with information about shelters, evacuations and places to pick up sandbags, food, water, shelters and gasoline.

Read more about Milton’s effect on Florida’s immigrants.

An apparent tornado touched down in a Fort Myers neighborhood near Page Field Airport

It happened Wednesday afternoon, well in advance of Hurricane Milton’s arrival.

Trees limbs were snapped off, the canopy from a gas station was torn to shreds and pieces of it littered the road, and and ice machine was thrown about 30 feet (9 meters).

The neighborhood has branches from trees strewn across the road. The area remains in a tornado watch throughout the day.

Four major bridges in the Tampa Bay area, including the famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge, have closed

The Skyway spans the mouth of Tampa Bay and links Pinellas and Manatee counties, carrying Interstate 275. It’s often closed when winds from any source reach a certain threshold.

The other three bridges cross Tampa Bay, linking Tampa with cities such as Clearwater and St. Petersburg. Those are the Howard Frankland, which also carries I-275, the Gandy and the Courtney Campbell Causeway.

Milton could cost insurers more than Helene

Milton could be the first hurricane in more than 100 years to directly hit the Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3 million people.

Insured losses could reach in the tens of billions of dollars at least, with the potential for more than $75 billion in losses if the storm directly hits Tampa as a Category 3 or stronger storm, according to an estimate from BMO Capital Markets.

Milton will be making landfall in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which wreaked havoc across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Helene hit a much less-populated area in the region. Inland areas at higher elevations, especially in western North Carolina, faced catastrophic flooding and many of homeowners lacked flood insurance. That will limit the number of claims to be paid out.

The ratings agency Moody’s estimates insured losses from Helene could reach up to $14 billion. Flood insurance is typically excluded from most homeowners’ policies and the U.S. government administers most of the nation’s flood insurance. Moody’s estimates the National Flood Insurance Program’s losses from Helene could reach $2 billion.

Hurricane Katrina, which slammed into New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast in 2005, was the costliest storm to ever hit the U.S. Insured losses measured $102 billion, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Insured losses from Category 4 Hurricane Ian, which hit the West Coast of Florida in September 2022, were estimated at more than $50 billion.

A curfew will begin Wednesday night in Charlotte County

A 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew has been enacted in Charlotte County, along southwestern Florida’s Gulf Coast, officials said on the county’s webpage.

The curfew begins Wednesday night, is in place until further notice and prohibits the sale of alcohol in the county between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until the curfew is lifted. Violating the curfew is a misdemeanor.

“Although I recognize the frustrations that come with enacting a curfew, this is a means of protecting the people and property of Charlotte County during and following Hurricane Milton,” Sheriff Bill Prummell said. “As soon as it is safe, I will recommend the order be rescinded. Until that time, the only people who should be out on the roadways during those hours are essential workers as they strive to assess the damage and provide assistance to those in need and people traveling to and from work.”

The curfew will be strictly enforced in Punta Gorda, Police Chief Pam Smith added.

“This curfew will allow emergency responders to focus on post-storm rescue and recovery efforts,” Smith said.

Surge from Hurricane Milton starting to appear in Cape Coral

Just after noon Wednesday, the surge was already starting to appear along the harbor in Cape Coral, at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River.

The water had moved well up the beach and was nearing the parking lot. A pier was within a foot of being submerged.

Heavy rains from bands associated with Hurricane Milton were bringing heavy rain and wind gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph).

In Lee County, the public safety director says the time to evacuate has passed

In Lee County, which includes Fort Myers about 95 miles (153 kilometers) southeast of Tampa, Public Safety Director Ben Abes said Wednesday that the county’s law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services will not respond to calls beginning later Wednesday when the weather worsens.

“Our area hospitals may also lock down, which would prevent access for ... ambulances,” Abes said.

Abes said tropical storm-force winds were coming ashore and the time to evacuate has passed.

“It is not safe to be out and it is not safe to return to your home if you have evacuated,” Abes said. “The time to shelter in place is now.”

Abes said the county’s 13 shelters are housing more than 6,700 people.

St. Petersburg mayor says to prepare for a long recovery after Milton hits

St. Petersburg officials warned residents Wednesday afternoon that regardless of where the storm hits, the city should prepare for extended power outages and the possible shutdown of its sewerage system.

Mayor Ken Welch said residents should brace for a long recovery.

“This is the reality of a direct hit from a powerful hurricane in our area. This is not a storm that we will recover from quickly. We have a long road ahead of us, but we will recover and we will rebuild,” Welch said. “But for the next several hours, our focus is to keep everyone safe, and we can do that.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out at people who spread false information online

At a Wednesday briefing, DeSantis responded to a question about social media messages falsely suggesting federal emergency officials aren’t going to let residents back into their homes after Hurricane Milton strikes.

“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. That’s just the way it is,” DeSantis said.

“If you’re hearing things — something that’s just outrageous — just know, in the state of Florida none of that stuff would ever fly,” he said. “FEMA is not leading this show, we are leading this show here in the state of Florida. We’re marshaling whatever assets are available to us, we’re leveraging that.”

“There’s not going to be anything where FEMA is ever going to be able to keep you from your home,” he said.

“Be careful about the nonsense that gets circulated, and just know that the more titillating it is, the more likely somebody is making money off it,” he added. “And they don’t really give a damn about the well-being and safety of the people that are actually in the eye of this storm, it’s all just trying to monetize what they’re doing.”

At a shelter in St. Petersburg: ‘Sleeping on the floor, that’s the hardest part for me’

Trokon Nagbe and his husband Morris Kulp evacuated their one-story home in St. Petersburg to stay at the storm shelter at Gibbs High School, where as of Wednesday morning some 1,700 people were hunkering down.

The couple didn’t have damage from Hurricane Helene, but heard Hurricane Milton would be much worse and didn’t want to change it. They wished they knew to bring their own cots though — the couple said evacuees are sleeping on the floor of the school’s classrooms.

“Sleeping on the floor, that’s the hardest part for me,” Nagbe said.

“It’s not the Hilton or the Marriott,” his husband Morris Kulp added, “but it sure is appreciated.”

Pasco County officials say ‘This was your last chance if you need to get to a shelter’

Shortly before noon Wednesday, officials in Pasco County, home to more than 500,000 people in bedroom communities for Tampa and St. Petersburg, said they were getting ready to take buses off the roads.

“This is your last chance if you need to get to a shelter,” the Pasco County Public Information Office said in a written statement. “After that, you’ll need to find a way to the shelter or be prepared to ride out the storm.”

The county has six shelters open for anyone in mandatory evacuation zones.

At Legoland home in Florida, officials urge people: ‘Go now, don’t wait’

Forecasted tornadoes and up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) of rain — along with possible hurricane-force wind — prompted officials in the storm’s path in central Florida to urge people to reach their safe places immediately.

“Go now. Don’t wait. The time to be able to move around safely and make those last-minute preparations is rapidly closing,” Polk County Emergency Management Director Paul Womble urged residents in a public briefing Wednesday morning.

Inland from the Tampa area and south of Orlando, Polk County is home to the Legoland Florida Resort theme park, which was closed ahead of the storm.

The weather will get bad after dark and flooding may even worsen over the next couple days as rainwater finds its way to the ocean, Womble warned.

“Once you’re hunkered down, just stay put. There’s no reason at that point to go out there. There will be trees down, there will be power lines down, it will be dangerous to move around,” Womble said.

Nearly 3,000 people already were in the county’s 19 shelters and there was still plenty of space for more, he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris warns against jacking up prices on people dealing with back-to-back hurricanes

“Those evacuating before Hurricane Milton or recovering from Hurricane Helene should not be subject to illegal price gouging or fraud – at the pump, airport, or hotel counter,” she said in a statement Wednesday.

Harris said the federal government is tracking allegations and “will hold those taking advantage of the situation accountable.”

President Joe Biden made a similar demand Tuesday.

“I’m calling on the airlines and other companies to provide as much service as possible to accommodate evacuations and not to engage in price gouging, to just do it on the level,” he said at the White House.

The famous Sunshine Skyway Bridge spanning the mouth of Tampa Bay closes as Milton approaches

The Florida Highway Patrol said in an email Wednesday that the Sunshine Skyway Bridge spanning the mouth of Tampa Bay is now closed to traffic as Hurricane Milton approaches.

Officials had earlier said major bridges around Tampa Bay planned to close in the afternoon.

The Skyway links Pinellas and Manatee counties and carries Interstate 275. It’s often closed when winds from any source reach a certain threshold.

One Florida man hunkers down to test a house built to withstand hurricanes

Christian Burke and his mother Patty are hunkering down in their three-story, poured concrete home overlooking the bay.

Burke said his father, a builder by trade, designed this home with a Category 5 hurricane in mind — and now they’re going to test it.

As a police vehicle drove by blaring an announcement urging residents to evacuate, Burke acknowledged staying isn’t a good idea and said he’s “not laughing at this storm one bit” — he just believes the house his father built will withstand it.

National Weather Service says much of the southern part of Florida is under a tornado watch

More than 12 million people in the state faced the threat of tornadoes along with hail and wind, the service said.

The city of Tampa was providing real-time flooding information via its website. However, city officials said it was past time for residents to evacuate or stay home.

“Stay home today. By this time, you should be either evacuated or hunkering down,” the city said in a post X on Wednesday morning.

The city was still working to gather debris from Hurricane Helene in advance of Milton’s arrival.

Hurricane Milton is now expected to make landfall late Wednesday

That’s according to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center, which says the storm will make landfall along the center of Florida’s west coast.

The hurricane center had previously said landfall could come late Wednesday or early Thursday.

More than half of Florida’s school districts are closed in anticipation of Hurricane Milton

State education officials say some school buildings will be used as shelters for the storm throughout the affected region.

Among those closed is the Hillsborough County school district, where Tampa is located, which has about 224,000 students and is the nation’s seventh-largest school district.

Colleges and universities also canceled classes, with some saying they would switch to remote learning later this week if they’re able to resume classes. Some schools outside the storm’s path, including the University of Miami, planned to take precautions by shifting to remote learning through Thursday.

In a neighborhood in Punta Gorda

A couple of blocks from the Peace River, Ted Gjerde worked up a sweat Wednesday morning as he prepared his home for up to 12 feet of storm surge. His house sits on a 10-foot hill but that might not be enough protection.

The retiree has spent his life dealing with water — 23 years in the Navy running boilers followed by 20 years working at a nearby state water plant — so he had a plan. He had piled sandbags in front of his garage and put plywood and caulk on the interior of his doors.

“Hopefully, that should get me to 13 or 14 feet up,” he said before giving a mock, “Yay.”

He would spend the storm at the treatment plant, 25 feet above sea level, with his wife and their two German shepherds. His 1967 Chevy Camaro was already there.

Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge had unexpectedly gotten to the bottom of his garage door — a couple more feet and his classic car and his house would have been in trouble. Nearby homes that aren’t elevated got swamped.

“We got lucky, real lucky,” Gjerde said.

Gov. DeSantis says ‘unfortunately there will be fatalities’

“ I don’t think there’s any way around that,” he said at a Wednesday morning briefing.

Forecasters warn Milton could inflict wind and storm surge damage along the Georgia coast as it crosses Florida

Tropical storm warnings were issued as far north as Savannah, roughly 200 miles from the projected path of the hurricane’s center.

Storm surge of 2 to 4 feet was forecast for Georgia communities including St. Simons Island, home to nearly 16,000 people, and Tybee Island, which has a population of 3,100. Wind gusts of up to 45 mph could break off large tree limbs, topple shallow-rooted trees and cause scattered power outages, according to the National Weather Service.

‘You can’t just hunker down with that’

Gov. Ron DeSantis said to people choosing to remain home on barrier islands, “Just know that if you get 10 feet of storm surge, you can’t just hunker down with that.”

“If you’re on the southern part of this storm, you are going to get storm surge,” DeSantis said.

“It’s churning massive amounts of water, and that water is going to come out,” he added. “Man, if you’re anywhere in the eye or south, you are going to get a major storm surge.”

Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers has closed

It will remain closed on Thursday, according to a statement on the airport’s website.

“We plan to resume operations on Friday, Oct. 11, but that will depend on a damage assessment and staffing,” the statement said.

The closing includes the airport terminal, car rental agencies and parking facilities.

A Florida official warns against looting

“Florida will not stand for looting — we will not stand for it. We will come after you,” said Mark Glass, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Emergency managers now plan to start working on damage prediction models

The models were developed before the storm, with plans specific to various parts of the state, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The plans will be used to project where the most damage will likely be, based on the hurricane’s last position and movement at landfall, he said.

Gov. DeSantis described a wide range of resources to help respond to Milton

That includes 6,000 Florida National Guard members and 3,000 members of the National Guard from other states.

“This is the largest Florida National Guard search and rescue mobilization in the entire history of the state of Florida,” he said during a Wednesday morning briefing.

There are 31,000 people in shelters and there’s room for nearly 200,000 people, “so there is space available in these shelters,” he said.

A tornado crossed Interstate 75 in Florida as Hurricane Milton approached the state

The National Weather Service in Miami posted a photo on the social platform X of the funnel crossing the highway Wednesday morning with the words: “TORNADO crossing I-75 as we speak! Seek shelter NOW!”

Gov. DeSantis says ‘You still have time to evacuate if you are in an evacuation zone’
“The roads and the interstates, they are flowing,” he said, but added that traffic conditions could deteriorate as the day goes on Wednesday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says some gas stations have run out of fuel

But in a Wednesday morning briefing, the governor said highway patrol cars with sirens are escorting gasoline tanker trucks to get them through traffic to refill the supply.

“And they are continuing with the fuel escorts as we speak,” he said.

Water pressure will be lowered in the Port Charlotte area to prepare for Milton

In the Port Charlotte area, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Tampa, officials said water pressure would be lowered Wednesday morning.

Utility operations for Charlotte County also would be suspended at noon. Officials said on the county’s webpage that storm surge and heavy rainfall will inundate the sewer system, making it difficult for wastewater to flow properly.

When will Milton make landfall?

Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday or early Thursday.

“We must be prepared for a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.

As of Wednesday morning, the storm was about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southwest of Tampa and moving northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).

In Largo, a city in central Pinellas County, a steady rain fell all morning

But there were no immediate strong winds. Most businesses were closed as people finished storm preparations and got to the location where they’d ride out the storm.

In the Tampa Bay area, counties are using multiple ways of communication to urge residents to evacuate from vulnerable areas

They’re also providing other key information, such as shelter locations. On Wednesday morning, Pinellas County sent people text messages, emails and direct cellphone calls to warn them of the dangers. Similar methods are used in neighboring Hillsborough County and other locations.

In Florida’s Pinellas County, official says the window is rapidly closing for people in vulnerable low-lying areas to evacuate

“This is it, folks,” Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out and you need to get out now.”

Perkins said 13 public shelters are open for people with no other option to escape the storm and that major bridges around Tampa Bay would begin closing in the afternoon. Perkins also said people should not feel a sense of relief because of indications Milton might come ashore south of Tampa.

“Everybody in Tampa Bay should assume we are going to be ground zero.,” she said.

Climate change boosted Helene’s deadly rain and wind and scientists say the same is likely for Milton

Human-caused climate change boosted a devastating Hurricane Helene’s rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as a strengthening Hurricane Milton threatens the Florida coast less than two weeks later.

The warming climate boosted Helene’s wind speeds by about 13 mph (21 kph), and made the high sea temperatures that fueled the storm 200 to 500 times more likely, World Weather Attribution calculated Wednesday from Europe. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average, WWA said.

“Hurricane Helene and the storms that were happening in the region anyway have all been amplified by the fact that the air is warmer and can hold more moisture, which meant that the rainfall totals — which, even without climate change, would have been incredibly high given the circumstances — were even higher,” Ben Clarke, a study co-author and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, said in an interview.

Milton will likely be similarly juiced, the authors said.

The scientists warned that continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more hurricanes like Helene, with “unimaginable” floods well inland, not just on coasts. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds.

Read more about the effects of climate change on hurricanes.

‘It’s a ghost town around here’

In Charlotte Harbor, about two blocks from the water, Josh Parks spent Wednesday morning packing his Kia sedan with his clothes and other belongings from his small triplex apartment.

The clouds were swirling and the winds had begun to gust. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, its streets still filled with waterlogged furniture, torn-out drywall and other debris.

“It’s a ghost town around here,” said Parks, an auto technician.

His roommate had already fled and Parks wasn’t sure when he would be back.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” said Parks, who was fleeing to his daughter’s inland home.

The bridge from the mainland to the island of St. Pete Beach has been closed

Law enforcement vehicles blocked the bridge from the mainland to the barrier island of St. Pete Beach on Wednesday morning, where as of Tuesday evening, officials had closed down access to this string of low-lying barrier islands that jut out into the Gulf.

All residents in these low-lying communities west of the city of St. Petersburg are under mandatory evacuation orders, as another storm bears down less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed 12 people in the Tampa Bay area, including residents who didn’t leave – and then drowned in their homes.

At a park bench on the side of the road that cuts through the small island of Deadman Key, plastic bags stuffed with clothes and a shopping cart full of someone’s personal belongings sat in the blowing rain, seemingly abandoned by its owner ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected impact.

Three boats were already dashed against a low-lying seawall and under a bridge, apparently casualties from Helene, which sent a deadly storm surge into scores of homes in Pinellas County, even as the eye of that storm stayed 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore from this stretch of the coast.

Officials are warning that a direct hit from Hurricane Milton would bring far greater risks to this part of the state.

A tornado watch has been issued for more than 20 Florida counties ahead of Hurricane Milton

The National Weather Service on Wednesday morning issued the watch, which includes a vast part of Florida, including the Tampa area, the Florida Keys and Miami-Dade County.

In Sarasota, emergency officials urgently warned people who live near bodies of water to leave immediately

“We’ve seen a lot of questions about, ‘well I live on a creek,’ or ‘I live on a river, is it really going to get 10 to 15 feet where I live?,’” Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi said in a briefing early Wednesday.

“That storm surge is going to start at 10 or 15 feet near the coastline and then it’s going to travel,” she said. “And storm surge likes to go on the path of least resistance. So those of you that live near a river, that live near a creek, those river banks, their water will come up.”

“We do not want you staying in your home if you’re anywhere near a body of water,” Tapfumaneyi said.

“This is going to be an intense disaster for Sarasota County,” she added. “Evacuate now if you have not done so already.”

(With AP inputs)