Hurricane Milton downgrades to Category 4 as Florida prepares for its arrival

Hurricane Milton, which remained at Category 5 overnight this Tuesday, has now dropped to Category 4 in the morning. However, its great magnitude remains, while residents in Florida have taken refuge due to the constant alerts.

Hurricane Milton threatens a historically deep and dangerous storm surge, along with wind gusts exceeding 100 mph. The phenomenon is forecast to cause catastrophic damage across a large swath of the state’s west coast.

State authorities have been working to evacuate millions of people from vulnerable coastal areas since Monday. This operation is described as the largest mass evacuation in Florida since Hurricane Irma in 2017.

For its part, the Florida National Guard has mobilized 5,000 troops to assist in the response, and another 3,000 are expected to be deployed before the storm makes landfall. Additionally, the Florida Department of Transportation has opened the shoulders of northbound Interstates 4 and 75 to expedite evacuations and has suspended tolls.

For those who have not evacuated, authorities have issued stern warnings. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor emphasized the seriousness of the situation.

“I have said many times that if you want to fight Mother Nature, she wins 100 percent of the time. People who are in these situations, let’s say they are in a one-story house. It’s twelve feet above that house. So, if they are in it, they know that basically that is the coffin they are in,” he warned.

Water levels of 3 to 4.5 meters are predicted along the central-western coast, topped by devastating waves driven by hurricane-force winds. These levels, significantly higher than the damage caused last month by Hurricane Helene, would exceed anything seen in more than a century in the Tampa Bay area.

“Yes, you may have been through hurricanes before, but you didn’t go through the 1921 storm that left water in much of Pinellas County, nor the 1848 hurricane that left 15 feet of Gulf water where today is the center of Tampa,” recalled FOX Weather hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross.

With information from Fox Weather