Milton live updates: Officials urge evacuations as hurricane looms

Steady rain fell and winds began to gust in the Tampa Bay area Wednesday morning as mighty Hurricane Milton churned toward a potentially catastrophic collision with the west coast of Florida, where some residents insisted they would stay even after millions were ordered to evacuate. Stragglers face grim odds of surviving, officials said.Watch live coverage from Orlando sister station WESH in the video player above.The Tampa Bay region, home to more than 3.3 million people, hasn't seen a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century. Milton fluctuated between categories 4 and 5 as it approached, but regardless of the distinction in wind speeds, the National Hurricane Center said, it would be a major and extremely dangerous storm when its center makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday. Here's the latest on Milton as the storm approaches (all times eastern):7:30 p.m. ETWith its mighty strength and its dangerous path, Hurricane Milton powered into a very rare threat flirting with experts’ worst fears.Warm water fueled amazingly rapid intensification that took Milton from a minimal hurricane to a massive Category 5 in less than 10 hours. It weakened, but quickly bounced back. And when its winds briefly reached 180 mph, its barometric pressure, a key measurement for a storm’s overall strength, was among the lowest ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico this late in the year.At its most fierce, Milton almost maxed out its potential intensity given the weather factors surrounding it.“Everything that you would want if you’re looking for a storm to go absolutely berserk is what Milton had,” Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said.Milton also grew so potent because it managed to avoid high-level cross winds that often decapitate storms, especially in autumn. As Milton neared Florida it hit those winds, called shear, which ate away at its strength, as meteorologists had forecasted.7:15 p.m. ETJackie Curnick, 32, said she wrestled with her decision to stay and hunker down at home in Sarasota, Florida. But with a 2-year-old son and a baby girl on the way, Curnick and her husband thought it was for the best.Curnick is due to give birth Oct. 29 to their daughter, who they’ve already named Callie.Curnick said they started packing Monday to evacuate — collecting important documents, clothes, food, water and the bassinet for Callie if she came early. But they couldn’t find any available hotel rooms, and the few they came by were too expensive.She said there were too many unanswered questions if they got in the car and left: Where to sleep, if they’d be able to fill up their gas tank, and if they could even find a safe route out of the state.“The thing is it’s so difficult to evacuate in a peninsula,” she said. “In most other states, you can go in any direction to get out. In Florida there are only so many roads that take you north or south.”7 p.m. ETAs of 7 p.m. Wednesday, Milton was centered about 35 miles (50 kilometers) west-southwest of Sarasota, Florida, and had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported.The Category 3 storm was moving northeast at 15 mph (28 kph), slowing slightly from earlier in the afternoon.“The northern eyewall of Hurricane Milton is beginning to move onshore of the Florida gulf coast near Tampa and St. Petersburg where an Extreme Wind Warning is now in effect,” the hurricane center said in its latest advisory. “Please shelter in place as these extremely dangerous hurricane-force winds overspread the region.”6:40 p.m.As of Wednesday evening, three Florida offices of the National Weather Service had issued a total of 133 tornado warnings associated with Hurricane Milton.The Miami and Tampa offices issued 49 warnings each, while Melbourne had 35.6:30 p.m.Some mobile homes in a rural area south of Orlando were damaged Wednesday from tornadoes as Hurricane Milton approached Florida, according to the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office. One person sustained a minor injury.Several homes in the Tropical Harbor Mobile Park Home in Lake Placid, Florida, were damaged, the sheriff’s office said.Lake Placid is located about 100 miles south of Orlando, in the heart of Florida’s citrus country.6:15 p.m.Water is already covering some roadways in Lee County, where Fort Myers is, as rain bands and storm surge from Hurricane Milton were hitting southwest Florida, according to the sheriff’s office.One road, Inlet Drive, was covered with knee-deep water shortly after 5 p.m. and water from the Gulf was flooding and spreading sand across other roads in the area, officials said.The sheriff and other local officials urged residents in the southwestern Florida coastal county to stay home and off the roadways until the storm passes.5:45 p.m.As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have forcefully warned Americans multiple times on Wednesday about what the president is calling “the storm of the century.”President Joe Biden on Wednesday blasted his predecessor for spreading an “onslaught of lies” about how the federal government is handling the damage from Hurricane Helene as another hurricane, Milton, was on the verge of making landfall in Florida.“Quite frankly, these lies are unamerican,” Biden said from the White House. “Former President Trump has led this onslaught of lies.”“To the people of Florida and all affected states, we’ve got your back,” Biden said in remarks from the White House’s Roosevelt Room. “We’ve got your back, and Kamala and I will be there for as long as it takes to rescue, recover and rebuild.” He also denounced misinformation about the hurricane response efforts as “un-American.”Biden said that Trump and his allies have misrepresented the response and resources of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The president singled out Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R- Georgia, saying that she claimed the federal government could control the weather.Asked why he believed his Republican opponents were not talking accurately about the government’s response, Biden said, “I don’t know.”5:20 p.m.As of 5 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Hurricane Milton was centered about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west-southwest of Sarasota, Florida, and had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported.The Category 3 storm was moving northeast at 17 mph (28 kph).5:10 p.m.More than 5,000 people were in shelters in the storm’s path east of the Tampa-St. Petersburg area but officials urged others not to venture out to one at this point, as storms began bringing down power lines and causing flooding Wednesday afternoon.Several tornadoes were reported in the area but none had touched down.“Unless you really have a good reason to leave at this point, we suggest you just hunker down,” Polk County Emergency Management Director Paul Womble said in a public update.The county had 19 shelters open, including three that were pet-friendly.Already officials were urging people to use common sense after the storm. Keep out of flooded areas because it can be hard to tell how deep the water is or what dangers lurk under the surface, Womble said.And be careful using generators: Don’t run them indoors or in garages, don’t spill gasoline on a hot motor and don’t link one to a home circuit if you’re not a professional electrician, he said.5 p.mSpace weather forecasters say a severe solar storm is heading to Earth that could stress power grids even more as the U.S. deals with major back-to-back hurricanes.A severe geomagnetic storm watch has been issued for Thursday into Friday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday it has notified operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft to take precautions. It also alerted the Federal Emergency Management Agency about possible power disruptions.Experts do not expect the storm to surpass the extreme solar storm that hit Earth in May. That one was the strongest to strike in more than two decades.4:45 p.m.More gas stations in Florida are running out of fuel despite the state’s efforts to replenish them ahead of Milton’s expected landfall.According to analysts at GasBuddy, more than 20% of gas stations in Florida were without fuel Wednesday afternoon, including more than 60% in Tampa and St. Petersburg.Gov. Ron DeSantis said state troopers had escorted tanker trucks carrying almost 1 million gallons (3.8 million liters) of gas to stations by late Wednesday afternoon and that the state had 1.6 million gallons (6.1 million liters) of diesel and 1.1 million gallons (4.2 million liters) of gas on hand.“There is no, right now, fuel shortage,” he said of the state as a whole. “However, demand has been extraordinarily high and some gas stations have run out.” 4:30 p.m.Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell said she would travel to Florida on Wednesday afternoon to help oversee the agency’s response to Hurricane Milton.During a news conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, Criswell said while she is in Florida, her regional administrator Robert Samaan will remain in North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene hit communities hard less than two weeks ago.“I want to assure the people of North Carolina that while we watch Hurricane Milton approach the coast of Florida, you can be assured that no resources are going to be taken from North Carolina,” Criswell said. “Those that are here are the ground are here to support the efforts that are still needed for the response and the initial recovery. And we will continue to bring in whatever is needed to support these ongoing recovery efforts.”Criswell said she will to return to North Carolina “to make sure that all of our federal assets, the entire federal family, is moving to the places that are needed. And if we need additional resources, we will continue to bring those in.”4:15 p.m.Seven tornadoes have hit Florida in advance of Hurricane Milton, the National Weather Service in Miami said Wednesday.Hurricanes and tropical storms have the ability to produce tornadoes. The National Weather Service said there had been 53 tornado warning issued by 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 41 of which were issued by the weather service in Miami.The weather service said via X that it had “received reports of structures damaged in Lakeport” Wednesday as the “most recent tornado-warned storm moved through the area.” The service said it was the second tornado to impact Lakeport, an unincorporated community about two hours from Miami, on Wednesday.4 p.m. Milton was downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday but remained a major storm and a grave threat as it closed in on Florida’s west coast, where officials sounded urgent warnings for residents to flee inland or face grim odds of surviving the storm’s surge.Steady rain fell and winds gusted as Milton drew closer to the Tampa Bay region, which is home to more than 3.3 million people and hasn’t seen a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century.Milton has fluctuated in strength as it approached, but regardless of the distinction in wind speeds, the National Hurricane Center said it would be a major and extremely dangerous storm when its center makes landfall late Wednesday.Milton was centered about 100 miles southwest of Tampa with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, the center reported.3:45 p.m.In Cuba, Milton is causing flooding in low-lying areas.On Havana’s Malecón and Avenida del Puerto, some people were watching the force of the sea as the low-lying area began flooding, even though they knew the hurricane was far from Cuba.“This is something very big. It draws my attention,” Jorge Taylor, a 57-year-old builder who was passing by the Malecón and was surprised by a wave that hit his arm, told The Associated Press at midday Wednesday. “This could get much more dangerous.”Some young people were even playing with the waves that were jumping on the Malecón.A kilometer inland from Havana Bay, fisherman Carlos Batalla, 61, didn’t stop his fishing work, taking advantage of the fact that the rains had stopped, but he warned that it looked “ugly” towards the sea because his colleagues had tied up the small boats from which they usually catch the fish.3:15 p.m.Tropical storm-force winds from Hurricane Milton begin lashing Florida.Tropical storm-force winds have begun lashing the western coast of Florida as Hurricane Milton draws closer, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory Wednesday afternoon.Officials said at 3 p.m. that the Category 4 storm’s center was 120 miles southwest of Tampa and 110 miles west of Fort Myers. It had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph.The storm is expected to make landfall Wednesday night.The Associated Press, WESH, WBBH, WPBF and CNN contributed to this story.