Historic Hurricane Milton Threatens Florida With Catastrophic Damage

and good morning welcome to Fox Weather First I'm Craig Herrera here in New York at our Studios this is the start of today's live coverage of hurricane Milton approaching Florida my co-anchor and friend Britta Merwin joins us from leok Key Florida right near Sarasota good morning BR good morning Craig uh arriving in leok key this morning a very eerie feeling uh there there's very few people out and about as you can imagine we just had a police officer drive by Leo key is four miles away from downtown Sarasota you take the John Ringling Causeway to

get over here it's known for St armen's Circle it's an outdoor shopping area absolutely beautiful that's behind the camera and we'll show you what it looks like this morning everything has moved out of the storefronts and everything is boarded up meanwhile behind me Craig that's the concern debris piles left over from Helen this beautiful quiet neighborhood about 2500 residents live here fulltime cuz keep in mind it's a growing population right you have a lot of tourists that come in and come out but for the people that call leok Key home all year round their lives

are right now out on a sidewalk and that's going to be a very complicated scenario come tomorrow morning which is the earliest onset of storm surge that is possible so Craig you know this is going to be a long journey and this is truly just the beginning yeah BR and as we take a look at some the debris behind you I think that's been a big concern as well right trying to clear out the debris but not really the case in all situations there just hasn't been enough time although there's no way that they can

remove it we have seen uh one huge truck come through I mean keep in mind it's the middle of the night and we've seen a debris truck come through but there's there's no way to possibly get rid of the debris so what's behind me is just a couple homes but driving around Leo key in the dark of night every street is the same and every street is just lined on both sides as if you're going through a tunnel of snow but instead of the snow it is people's homes it's their belongings it's their memories it's

their Furniture it's their mattresses and you just have one lane that goes in and one lane that goes out and there's no way to get rid of that debris before the storm surge arrives from Milton yeah and BR I know you Bob uh vanyan also traveling yesterday some of the hotels have been evacuated was yours okay because I know it's tough to find a place in a situation like this it's very tough uh we started making plans for coming to Sarasota this past weekend and everything was sold out uh that gives me a little bit

of Hope because for the most part it's for residents and that's who needs to be in these hotels you need to be close to home so when Milton is gone they can get back but unfortunately the reality is some of those people in the hotels have been there for over a week because they don't have a home to come back to because of Helen uh looking at the condition of this neighborhood I don't think many people are actually in their homes and have not been in their homes since Helen made their made its way through

really uh you talking about the flight here that was something that surprised me Craig the flight was packed I mean they were asking people if they would be willing to fly another day flying from Newark down to Tampa we're actually staying in Tampa we're in evacuation Zone B so we're on standby to evacuate so far we haven't been asked to leave we're on a higher Point within the Tampa Bay area in the downtown spot but um uh we're we're on standby as well to get evacuated because of course we're no exception if we're asked to

leave we're going to leave absolutely it's all about life and protecting yourselves uh briter we'll check in with you throughout the morning as well I want to get to where Milton is now because boy yesterday we were watching this brda the entire team and watching the rapid intensification that it was uh going from a cat one to a cat five in about 11 hours Florida just bracing for impact now Milton has its eyes set on Florida's Gulf Coast we talk about dangerous lifethreatening impacts including storm surge strong winds potential power outages lots of folks evacuating

ahead of Milton as you just heard BR talk about talking with Steven McLoud meteorologist behind the scenes here looking at Interstate 75 all the way from Tampa to the Georgia state line a lot of the traffic is slowly moving as people evacuate Hillsboro County home to Tampa ordering evacuations for areas adjacent to Tampa Bay for all mobile and manufactured homes by tonight and as of yesterday through Wednesday the schools there hillsbor Hillsboro County Public Schools all closed they are being used as shelters uh so it's one of those areas where if you need to go

check on it uh when we take a look at the hurricane warnings already posted take a look at how widespread these are and how far inland this is a storm that will certainly be big once it gets close to the Florida uh Coastline probably major Category 3 or better having said that maybe even holding as a hurricane as it moves over the peninsula as we go through Thursday and Friday so you can see the widespread uh wind damage that we're expecting all the way to places like Lake o Kobe into Orlando tropical storm wars are

up into the North and down to the South and a hurricane watch on the Atlantic side we talk about this storm it's category four at this time now the eye went through an eyewall replacement and then we start to see the eye developing again there's plenty of moisture within the storm to the South some dryer to the norom dryer but right where this is It's conducive for development and we'll probably see some fluctuations in the intensity as we go through the day today and into tomorrow it starts to move off to the north and Northeast

having said that storm surge warnings are in place Cedar Key Tampa Fort Meyers all the way down past colier County and when you think about storm surge this has been the most aggressive storm surge forecast for Tampa at 10 to 15 feet remember we just set records with hen in Tampa a storm surge watch on the back side of that because of the way that the winds are going to be going and that's going to be prop portions of Georgia into South Carolina so that's something that we'll be watching as well here's the Ready set

go any spot in red most of Central Florida in that go spot I mean stop what you're doing finalize your preparations if you haven't evacuated and you are being told to do so please be ready to go at a moment's notice Milton is a strongest Atlantic hurricane in 5 years and it's taking name at Florida's Gulf Coast we've been breaking this down for you the of hurricane Milton could come ashore as early as maybe tomorrow into Wednesday tomorrow sometime uh this is going to be close to the Tampa Bay Region which has not endured a

direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century and when you look at the imagery how just how compact the storm is and how intense it is I'll tell you what this storm is one for the record books we haven't seen one intensify like this since Wilma 2005 also we had Felix back in 2007 uh and when we're watching what goes on through this afternoon and you look at the forecast cone look at this wind still at 160 mph you're still talking Category 5 which is why we expect there to be some fluctuations

with the intensity of the storm uh especially if you go through some eyewall replacement if it tightens up the thing is it is going to stay rather small and Compact and then eventually start to open up it looks like with the forecast that being due to some wind in the higher elevations that'll help to pull it apart but we'll also see some wind on the south side of this no matter what happens it looks like it will broaden out and having said that the wind impact is going to be even bigger for most of these

areas when we know here's what we know so far largest Florida evacuation underway since hurricane Irma 2017 and BR when we talk about the lifethreatening storm surge it's a big part of any hurricane forecast I think more so for this one because we get caught up so many times on the cone but this surge is something we need to watch and for multiple reasons uh when it comes to Surge it is dictated by the size and intensity of the storm also by the angle of approach and the underwater topography we already know where we sit

with underwater topography the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida coastline is probably one of the top five worst spots when it comes to storm surge just naturally because of how it is made out but what is behind me is what's going to make a huge difference with storm surge all of this is going to be swallowed up by the ocean and AR sari our our coworker he describes storm surge in such an appropriate way he talks about becoming the ocean and that's exactly what it is that you become part of the ocean and unfortunately all

of this debris that is Left Behind in so many towns I mean this is just leok key but the entire you know gulf side of Florida it it's one neighborhood after another and all of that debris is going to possibly get stuck in 10 to 15 fet of water so the the homes behind me not only will have to take on the storm surge the power of the water but the massive amount of debris the cabinets the mattresses the 2x4s the drywall all of that is going to be slammed into these homes with the power

of the storm surge and the waves and that will make this a scenario that we have not seen before and BR when you think about that as well the storm surge picking all of that up moving it and just wherever the water wants to take it you think about the winds too I'm sure some of the debris is almost like a sale you've got siding you've got paneling and a lot of could EAS Beed and thrown With the Wind as well that's actually marked in the National Weather Service discussion at of Tampa the overnight discussion

they talk about the concern of projectiles uh they're concerned about all this debris being lofted up here in leok ke the strongest winds could be 125 miles hour during Hurricane Ian the top wind gust in Sarasota was over 100 milph so you you think about that strength of a wind and the debris that's laying around that's a whole another unsurvivable threat that again we haven't seen because the backto back hit whole setup of this makes it incredibly dangerous um they also mention that they're very concerned about folks that live in Mobile Homes it specifically says

mobile homes will be completely destroyed that is strong verbiage coming from the Weather Service yeah and when you think about the difference between mobile home and manufactured home it's the structure of mobile homes uh you know know built early 70s notwithstanding a lot of that and I can see why BR because these winds will be pretty intense and long duration at that and it's the second blow so it's almost like you got one blow anything that was loose or didn't really hold up that well gets a second blow now so this will be a concern

here for sure