Hurricane Milton threatens Florida as Category 5 storm, thousands flee

• Milton expected to grow in size before landfall, affecting hundreds of miles of coastline
• Evacuations ordered for over 1 million people in Florida's west-coast counties
• Milton forecast to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday
• Unusual path and rapid intensification raise concerns for storm-surge impact
• Huge storm comes less than two weeks after devastating Helene

Milton, which exploded on Monday into one of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record, was forecast to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, threatening a stretch of Florida's densely populated west coast that is still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.

A direct hit on the bay would be the first since 1921, when the now-sprawling Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area was a relative backwater. Today it is home to more than 3 million people.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned people against riding out the storm, calling Helene a mere wakeup call.

"If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die," Castor said.

In Tampa, Estephani Veliz Hernandez said she and her family were collecting their pets, important documents and their cash before heading to a relative's home further inland.

"We're leaving everything behind. We're just trying to get to safety," she said. "If anything happens - if God says here you go - we're all together at least."

The US National Hurricane Centre on Tuesday upgraded Milton back to a Category 5 hurricane, the highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, as maximum sustained winds picked up to 165 miles per hour (270km per hour).

At 4pm CDT (2100 GMT), the eye of the storm was 480 miles (775 km) southwest of Tampa, moving east-northeast at 9 mph (15 kph).

"Milton's wind field is expected to expand as it approaches Florida. In fact, the official forecast shows the hurricane and tropical-storm-force winds roughly doubling in size by the time it makes landfall," the hurricane center said.

The greater size also enlarges the scope of the risk of storm surge to hundreds of miles (km) of coastline. The hurricane center sees surges of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 metres) north and south of Tampa Bay, in addition to the ferocious winds and risk of inland flash flooding from intense rainfall.

Hurricane Helene left the Tampa Bay area more vulnerable when it hit the Gulf Coast's barrier islands and beaches on 26 September, sweeping away tons of sand, knocking down dunes and blowing away dune grass. That could exacerbate Milton's storm surge, according to Isaac Longley, a meteorologist with the commercial forecasting company AccuWeather.

"There's no gradual slope left to mitigate any of it," Longley said.

Dump trucks have been working 24 hours a day to remove mounds of debris left by Helene for fear Milton could turn them into dangerous projectiles, Governor Ron DeSantis said. Five-thousand National Guard members have been deployed, with another 3000 on hand for the storm's aftermath.

Underscoring the storm's threat, President Joe Biden on Tuesday postponed his 10-15 October trip to Germany and Angola to oversee storm preparation and response, the White House said. Biden urged those under evacuation orders to leave immediately, saying it was a matter of life and death.

Won't be fooled again

State ferryboat operator Ken Wood, 58, spent Tuesday morning packing up his truck in the Gulf city of Dunedin about 24 miles (39 km) west of Tampa so he could avoid the brunt of the storm with Andy, his 16-year-old cat.

Two weeks ago, Wood defied evacuation orders and hunkered down in his house during Helene, a night he described as one of the most harrowing experiences of his life.

"We won't make the same mistake again," he said.

More than a dozen coastal counties issued mandatory evacuation orders, including Tampa's Hillsborough County. Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, ordered the evacuation of more than 500,000 people. Lee County said 416,000 people lived in its mandatory evacuation zones.

Motorists waited to fill their tanks in lines snaking around gas stations, only to find that some were out of fuel. State police provided escorts to fuel trucks replenishing gas stations, DeSantis said.

By early Tuesday, bumper-to-bumper traffic choked roads leading out of Tampa.

Musician Mark Feinman, 38, said it took 13 hours to drive his family 500 miles (805 km) from St. Petersburg to Pensacola. Some drivers sped through breakdown lanes and across grass medians to cut ahead, causing accidents, he said. Gas stations along Interstate 10 seemed to be out of fuel.

About 17 percent of Florida's nearly 8000 gas stations had run out of fuel by late Tuesday, according to markets tracker GasBuddy.

Fueled by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic, as it surged from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane - the most powerful - in less than 24 hours.

It had weakened to a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday but regained strength. Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane after landfall in Florida, causing catastrophic damage and power outages expected to last days.

The storm already caused some havoc in Mexico, but Governor Joaquin Diaz Mena of Yucatan state said much of the damage reported so far had been minor. Thousands of utility customers lost power.

Relief efforts are still under way throughout much of the US Southeast in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 200 people across six states and caused billions of dollars in damage.

- Reuters