By The Opinion
08 Oct 2024, 08:56 AM EDT
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned city residents to leave the evacuated areas, under the risk of dying if they decide to stay before the arrival of Hurricane Milton.
“I can say this without any dramatization: if someone decides to stay in one of those evacuated areas, they are going to die,” he said on CNN.
The mayor’s alert coincides with the alerts of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has asked Americans in Florida to follow the alerts of local authorities, due to the danger of Hurricane Milton, whose winds have reached 180 miles per hour.
It is one of the most powerful hurricanes in recent years that, before arriving in Florida, could reach the coasts of Mérida, Yucatán, in Mexico.
The impact of the hurricane is expected to occur on Wednesday morning, so authorities urge Florida residents to evacuate as indicated.
Ken Graham, NOAA deputy administrator for weather services and director of the National Weather Service, explained the hurricane’s power Tuesday.
“We have had a rapid intensification of this storm,” he indicated. “It is the third highest we have had in records, behind Wilma and Félix.”
Graham explained the path of the hurricane to journalists in a virtual conference.
“Right now, the strength of the hurricane is 175 miles per hour, it is a category five storm, the highest on our scale,” Graham insisted. “The hurricane will make landfall on the coasts of Japan and Mexico over the next 24 hours, returning to the Gulf and approaching the coast Wednesday night.”
Keep reading:
• Hurricane Helene leaves more than 115 dead and hundreds missing in the US.
• They search for missing Hispanics in Tennessee after the passage of Hurricane Helene