The president of the United States, Joe Biden, defined the hurricane as “the storm of the century” this Wednesday. Miltona monster of wind and water that, as it approached the western coast of Florida, was gaining and losing category 5, the maximum, in the last few hours. Biden spoke after noon at the White House, from which he led an extraordinary crisis management meeting that was broadcast by the news networks in which the vice president, Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate in the November elections, as well as expert members also participated. of the Administration, among them, the Secretary of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.
When he spoke, Harris wanted to address “especially the people of the Tampa region,” the place where the predictions are that the eye of the hurricane will make landfall this Wednesday somewhat earlier than expected, as early as 11:00 p.m. local time. (5:00 on Thursday, Spanish peninsular time). “We urge you to take this storm seriously. This time is different, it is more dangerous and more lethal. I know they are tough people, that they have experience, that they have survived other hurricanes, but if he tells you to evacuate, do it.” Fifty-one of the 67 counties in the State of Florida were on alert at that time, and mandatory evacuation orders had been issued in 15 of them.
The unusual staging also admitted a political reading. There are less than four weeks until the elections, and a blunder in the federal government’s management of a tragedy like the one it promises Milton could be fatal. Also on the table is the controversy, fueled by the Republican Party, over the damage mitigation tasks caused by the hurricane just two weeks ago. Helenethe deadliest since Katrina in 2005.
The White House has expressed concern about the storm of misinformation about recovery efforts after Helene that, for apparent electoral purposes, have been unleashed by former President Donald Trump and his allies. Transparency in the preparations for the new crisis can be interpreted as a strategy to silence these criticisms (in many cases based on hoaxes, in the case of Helene) before they occur.
“In recent weeks, blatant lies have been spread in a reckless, irresponsible and relentless manner, and that is upsetting people and undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been done.” [en el caso de Helene] and that it will continue to be carried out,” Biden said this Wednesday. “Former President Trump has led that avalanche of lies. Crazy things have been said that are simply not true. At times like this, there are no Republican or Democratic States. There is only one United States of America, where neighbors help each other and volunteers risk everything, including their own lives, to help their countrymen. “No one can doubt that we will be there to help,” he added.
The fearsome trajectory of Milton had shifted slightly southward in the morning, as tens of thousands of residents of the Gulf Coast and central Florida followed authorities’ recommendations on congested roads to leave their homes behind in search of shelter away from the water. or they prepared to receive the onslaught of the cyclone in the safest way possible, placing boards in the windows, filling the car’s tank, despite the queues, or obtaining sandbags. At the beginning of the day before the hurricane arrived, it was predicted, but not guaranteed, that the meteorological phenomenon, which, as Biden recalled, will affect areas that have not yet recovered from the passage of Helenewill make landfall in the Saraota area, and not, as had been assumed in previous days, near the large coastal conurbation of Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg.
Storm surge
It was expected to do so in the last hours of Wednesday or the first hours of Thursday, but that also changed with the study of atmospheric data. Meteorologists estimate that by then, Miltondoubled in size, was in category 3 or 4. In the area that will first receive the onslaught, authorities are preparing for a storm surge of up to 4.5 meters high and winds of about 210 kilometers per hour.
“Milton “It has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes in recorded history in west-central Florida,” a spokesperson for the National Hurricane Center warned on Wednesday. When one of these meteorological phenomena approaches, the authorities prefer to err on the side of extreme weather rather than give the false impression to the inhabitants of the affected areas that they can rely on their experience as hurricane survivors and ignore evacuation orders.
On Tuesday, the mayor of Tampa, Jane Castor, a city of 400,000 inhabitants (next to another, St. Petersburg, with 260,000 residents), went even further: “I can say, without dramatizing at all, that if you decide to stay in a from those evacuation zones, you are going to die,” he declared in an interview with CNN.
In a public appearance this Wednesday at noon, Castor defined the storm surge expected in the city he governs – “double that of Helene”, he warned, “as “historic, not only in terms of Florida, but in terms of the entire nation.” “We are very, very close to the point where people will no longer be able to go out,” Castor told reporters, warning that Tampa’s main bridges would close in the afternoon. Earlier, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had said in an early news update that regardless of where the eye of the storm makes landfall, the impact will be “broader.” “Absolutely every location on the west coast of Florida could experience a large storm surge,” he added.
The exposed Tampa Bay region has not suffered the direct hit of a major hurricane since 1921, and that would explain its expansion during this time to become the densely populated core it is today. In 2022 it was freed at the last moment from Ian, that moved south and left about 150 dead in Florida; It entered the area of Fort Myers (which is also in suspense these days) and traced a trajectory from the southwest to the northeast until it exited through the historic town of Saint Augustine, the first Spanish settlement in the United States. In its wake, it left floods in inland towns and cities, as well as further proof that in this type of phenomenon, water is usually as much or more fearsome than the wind.
Unlike that hurricane, Milton will attack Florida in a perpendicular trajectory, which gives rise to confidence that it will not gloat as much in its destruction as Ianbut also that it will hit with greater force.