Mayor of Tampa to residents in evacuation zones due to Hurricane Milton: if you don't evacuate, you are going to die

New York – Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said residents in evacuation zones who decide not to evacuate as Hurricane Milton approaches could die.

In an interview with CNN, the official emphasized the need for residents to follow the recommendations of the authorities and leave potentially dangerous areas shortly before the arrival of the storm, which dropped to category 4.

“I can tell you right now that they will have stayed, but there has never been one (hurricane) like this,” said the mayor. “And Helene was a wake-up call; “This is literally catastrophic,” he anticipated.

“And I can tell you without dramatization: if you decide to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” he warned.

“This is something I have never seen in my life and I can tell anyone who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area that they have never seen anything like this before,” he stressed. “People need to leave,” he added.

“If we have this storm surge predicted, this cannot be survived,” he said.

Castor mentioned that forecasts call for storm surges of 10 to 12 feet from Milton versus 6 feet from Helene.

“And that was literally devastating for many in our coastal areas,” he recalled.

Milton will impact Florida starting Wednesday

Forecasts indicate that Milton would hit Florida on Wednesday and be more destructive than Helene, which hit the “Sunshine State” last week.

Although the system dropped to category four, it could regain its strength and reach category 5 again.
The expectation is for Milton to make landfall somewhere between Cedar Key in the north and Naples in the south, possibly in areas of Tampa or Fort Myers.

Thousands of people in Florida have evacuated or are preparing to leave their homes and seek refuge in other areas or states before the arrival of the system.

They warn of several hours of congestion

Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Monday that people could face several hours of congestion.

“Traffic is going to be bad while people evacuate,” he warned.

The Florida Department of Transportation is allowing people to drive on the emergency shoulders of key interstate highways, but they will not be using “contrary traffic,” a system used by some states that converts all lanes into one lane. interstate in outbound traffic away from evacuation zones.

“We need that interstate system for emergency services, for staging of assets and resources, so residents can continue to move around,” Guthrie explained. “You have heard how evacuations happen here. To get out of the storm surge area to a safe place we need access to stay in all of our facilities,” he said.

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