Passengers on UK cruise ship 'stranded' miles from shore ahead of Hurricane Milton

The Sun Princess cruise ship is 'stranded' five-miles from the Florida shore

Cruise passengers have been evacuated from a ship via helicopter ahead of a huge storm. It comes as the Sun Princess cruise ship remains stranded five miles from shore as Hurricane Milton hits the coast of Florida in the USA.

The ship left Southampton on September 23 and was due to dock in Fort Lauderdale today (October 9). This was then moved up to yesterday (October 8) but due to the hurricane Port Everglades - where the ship would stop - is closed and the ship is stranded five miles off the coast of Florida for the storm.

Passengers are currently being taken by helicopter to an undisclosed location. It comes as Hurricane Milton is churning towards a potentially catastrophic collision along the west coast of Florida.

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Some residents have insisted they will stay after millions were ordered to evacuate and officials warned that stragglers would face grim odds of surviving. 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, SurreyLive reports.

The US National Hurricane Center [sic] predicted Milton, a Category 5 storm, would likely weaken but remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall late on Wednesday. Milton was centred early on Wednesday about 360 miles south-west of Tampa with maximum sustained winds of 160mph.

Thousands of fleeing cars clogged Florida’s major roads ahead of the storm, but time for evacuations is running out on Wednesday. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor noted that up to 15ft of storm surge forecast for her city would be deep enough to swallow an entire house.

“So if you’re in it, basically, that’s the coffin that you’re in,” she said. Milton targets communities that are still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida along its devastating route that left at least 230 dead across the South.

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1. End the two-child benefit cap
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5. Create permanent, multi year Household Support Fund and give more Discretionary Housing grants
6. Set up child health and wellbeing hubs in our most deprived neighbourhoods
7. Appoint a Birmingham child poverty tsar
8. Provide free public travel for young people

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