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Hurricane Milton is just hours away from making landfall on the Florida coast, forcing residents to evacuate to safety.
Milton, a category 5 storm, is on a collision course for the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, normally home to more than three million peoplebut the vast majority of whom have fled to safety.
The US National Hurricane Center described Milton as a “catastrophic” and “dangerous” major hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 160 mph.
Weather conditions are expected to start deteriorating on Wednesday afternoon, while forecasters say the path could vary before the storm makes landfall late on Wednesday night.
More than one million people in coastal areas are under evacuation orders, while those fleeing for higher ground clogged highways on Tuesday and gas stations ran out of fuel, in a region still recovering from the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.
Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic, growing from a category 1 to a category 5 in less than 24 hours. It could be potentially one of the most destructive ever to hit the region.
