Hurricane Milton is weakening slightly but remains a ferocious storm that could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St. Petersburg, engulfing the populous region with towering storm surges and turning debris from Helene’s devastation 12 days ago into projectiles.Follow AP’s coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes.Here’s the latest:Preparations the Biden administration is making ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrivalWhite House spokesperson Emilie Simons says the Biden administration has deployed temporary power teams, swift-water rescue teams and search and rescue teams as Hurricane Milton approaches Florida.She said FEMA also has established two staging bases stocked with 20 million meals and 40 million liters of water, and has nearly 900 staff members in the region. That includes 440 working on recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Helene, she said.“To anyone in Milton’s path, this storm will be catastrophic,” Simons told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Joe…

Hurricane Milton was expected to enlarge even as its intensity ebbed on Tuesday as the now-Category 4 storm grinded past Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula en route to Florida's Gulf Coast, where more than 1 million people were ordered to evacuate before the monster storm arrived.

The last time the eye of a major storm like Hurricane Milton struck Tampa Bay, in 1921, the city was a sleepy backwater of a few hundred thousands people. A century later, it’s among the fastest-growing metropolises in the United States, with more than 3 million people, and highly vulnerable to flooding due to climate […]