Officials in a Florida county have warned its 500,000 residents “this is your last chance” to take shelter.
“After that, you’ll need to find a way to the shelter or be prepared to ride out the storm,” Pasco County said in a statement.
Emergency management director in nearby Pinellas County, Cathie Perkins, said: “This is it, folks.
“Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now.
Rain begins to fall ahead of Hurricane MiltonAP
“Everybody in Tampa Bay should assume we are going to be ground zero.”
At a news conference in Tallahassee, state governor Ron DeSantis said: “Unfortunately, there will be fatalities – I don’t think there’s any way around that.”
Evacuee Mary Ann Fairman, 84, said she is facing “chaos and heartbreak” over the coming days.
She is among roughly 1,000 people at a shelter in West Bradenton, south of Tampa.
“The Gulf is practically in our backyard,” she said.
In Charlotte Harbor, even further south, Josh Parks was fleeing to his daughter’s home inland and said his roommate already left.
“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” he said.
