Thousands of people evacuate Florida before the arrival of powerful Hurricane Milton: “If you decide to stay in an evacuation zone you are going to die”

Less than a week after the devastating passage of Hurricane Helene, with a provisional toll of 227 dead, thousands of people have begun a massive evacuation due to the threat of the next big storm, Milton, a Category 5 hurricane that could cause another wave of destruction and death in Florida. The forecasts are not good. It is feared that it is the most powerful storm to hit the west of the southern state in a century.

That fear has Highways in several parts of Florida have already collapsed and specifically those at the exit of Tampathe city of almost 400,000 inhabitants that could be one of the most affected by the passage of Milton. The city’s airport remains closed, with more than 1,500 flights cancelled, and nearly 5,000 prisoners have been transferred to other prisons, far from the path of the cyclone that is expected to cross the State from coast to coast before reaching the Atlantic Ocean again in the east.

The mayor of Tampa, Jane Castor, has issued a mandatory evacuation order after declaring a state of emergency following the destruction caused by Helene. He has also pointed out that these instructions from the authorities should not be taken lightly. “I can say, without dramatizing at all, that if you decide to stay in one of those evacuation zones you are going to die,” He told CNN.

The president Joe Biden has also spoken of “a matter of life and death” if residents do not leave the area before the storm hits Wednesday night, “one of the worst in 100 years.” The president has been forced to postpone a trip to Germany and Angola to monitor Milton’s situation from the White House, as confirmed by his press secretary. Karine Jean-Pierre. “Given the projected trajectory and intensity” of the storm, the president has preferred to stay in the United States.

Biden visited Florida a few days ago to see in person the devastation caused by Helene, a Category 4 hurricane that left people dead in six states in addition to thousands of destroyed homes, unusable roads and severe damage to electrical service. “And I know it’s not the first time. A little over a year ago, a major hurricane hit these same communities. A couple of months ago, Hurricane Debby did the same thing. Three in a row. Three in a row. They have been through hell. Three in a row,” pointed out the Democratic president. A fourth catastrophe seems imminent.

Milton is expected to lose strength before making landfall somewhere along Florida’s west coast, although the forecast suggests it will double in size, affecting a broader region, including the Orlando area. The eye of Hurricane Milton, where the storm’s strongest winds are located, has discharged more than 58,000 rays in just 14 hours, according to Chris Vagasky, meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, something he described as “amazing” and that he had not seen before in the Atlantic.

Analysts on Wall Street fear that the level of destruction reaches 175 billion dollars in damage, almost four times more than what was caused by Hurricane Ian two years ago, when it was considered a phenomenon that occurred every 20 years.