For the second time in two weeks, the federal government has declared a public health emergency for Florida as the monstrous Hurricane Milton barrels toward the state’s Gulf Coast with winds in excess of 165 mph as of Tuesday afternoon.
Milton, a Category 5 hurricane, could make landfall Wednesday night in the Tampa Bay area, which has a population of more than 3.3 million. The 15 Florida counties under mandatory evacuation orders have a combined population of about 7.2 million people, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Milton is forecast to cross central Florida and dump as much as 18 inches of rain while heading toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to the National Hurricane Center. That path would largely spare other states ravaged by Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 26. That storm reportedly killed at least 230 people as it wound its way through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas.
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