Hurricane Milton is weakening slightly but remains a ferocious storm that could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St. Petersburg, engulfing the populous region with towering storm surges and turning debris from Helene’s devastation 12 days ago into projectiles.
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“We will let you know — as soon as possible — about school reopening after Hurricane Milton has passed. Our facilities team will need time to safely conduct countywide assessments on all of our sites to ensure our traditional public schools and offices are safe to welcome back students, teachers, and staff members,” the district said in a Facebook post.
The county was also urging residents in evacuation zones to seek shelter. The county is setting up evacuation centers, but those should be viewed as “last resort,” county government said in a statement.
And Criswell pleaded with residents to listen to their local officials for guidance on what to do as the storm bears down.
“This is an extremely dangerous hurricane,” Criswell said Tuesday morning. “I need people to listen to their local officials to get out of harm’s way… People don’t need to move far. They just need to move inland.”
The hurricane remained offshore early Tuesday. Power lines, light poles and trees were knocked down near the coast, and some small thatched-roof structures were destroyed, according to Yucatan Gov. Joaquín Díaz, but he did not report any deaths or injuries.
While Floridians are no strangers to storms, Tampa hasn’t been in the direct path of a major hurricane in over a century.
In that lapse, the area has exploded in growth. Tens of thousands of Americans moved to the area during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many choosing to settle along barrier islands like Clearwater and St. Petersburg overlooking the normally placid, emerald Gulf waters. More than 51,000 people moved to the area between 2022 and 2023, making it the fifth-largest-growing U.S. metropolitan area, according to U.S. Census data.
Longer term residents, after having experienced numerous false alarms and near misses like Irma in 2017, may be similarly unprepared for a direct hit. A local legend has it that blessings from Native Americans who once called the region home and used to build mounds to keep out invaders have largely protected the area from major storms for centuries.
MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel said a hurricane in Tampa is the “black swan” worst-case scenario that experts have worried about for years.
Hurricanes are humanity’s reminder of the uncontrollable, chaotic power of Earth’s weather.
Milton’s powerful push toward Florida just days after Helene devastated large parts of the Southeast likely has some in the region wondering if they are being targeted. In some corners of the internet, Helene has already sparked conspiracy theories and disinformation suggesting the government somehow aimed the hurricane at Republican voters.
Besides discounting common sense, such theories disregard weather history that shows the hurricanes are hitting many of the same areas they have for centuries. They also presume an ability for humans to quickly reshape the weather far beyond relatively puny efforts such as cloud seeding.
“If meteorologists could stop hurricanes, we would stop hurricanes,” Kristen Corbosiero, a professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University at Albany, said. “If we could control the weather, we would not want the kind of death and destruction that’s happened.”
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The entire Gulf Coast of Florida is especially vulnerable to storm surge.
Hurricane Helene came ashore some 150 miles (240 kilometers) away from Tampa in the Florida Panhandle and still managed to cause drowning deaths in the Tampa area due to surges of around 5 to 8 feet (1.5 to 2.5 meters) above normal tide levels.
Forecasters warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge (2.4 to 3.6 meters) in Tampa Bay. That’s the highest ever predicted for the location and nearly double the levels reached two weeks ago during Helene, hurricane center spokesperson Maria Torres said.
The storm could also bring widespread flooding. Five to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters) of rain was forecast for mainland Florida and the Keys, with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) expected in some places.
“There is no fuel shortage. Fuel continues to arrive in the state of Florida” despite long lines at gas stations, DeSantis said at a Tuesday morning news briefing. He said officials are working with fuel companies to continue bringing in gasoline.
“You do not have to get on the interstate and go far away,” DeSantis said. “You can evacuate tens of miles; you do not have to evacuate hundreds of miles away. You do have options.”
DeSantis said the state has helped evacuate more than 200 health care facilities in Milton’s path and that 36 county-run shelters are open.
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