With more than one million people in coastal areas under evacuation orders, those fleeing for higher ground clogged highways and petrol stations ran out of fuel, further rattling a region still recovering from the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.
The storm was on a collision course for the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than three million people, though forecasters said the path could vary before the storm crosses the coast late on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.
Hurricane — National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) #Milton Advisory 16: Milton Expected to Make Landfall On the Gulf Coast of Florida Late Wednesday as a Dangerous Major Hurricane. https://t.co/tW4KeGe9uJOctober 9, 2024
The storm is on a rare west-to-east path through the Gulf of Mexico and is likely to bring a deadly storm surge of three metres or more to much of Florida's Gulf Coast.
Officials from US President Joe Biden to Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned people in evacuation zones to get out or risk death.
Michael Tylenda, who was visiting his son in Tampa, said he was heeding that advice.
"If anybody knows anything about Florida, when you don't evacuate when you're ordered to, you can pretty much die," Tylenda said.
"They've had a lot of people here stay at their homes and they end up drowning. It's just not worth it. You know, the house can be replaced. The stuff can be replaced. So it's just better to get out of town."
Residents are following orders to evacuate areas such as Tampa, Florida, ahead of Hurricane Milton. (AP PHOTO)
Milton packed maximum sustained winds of 260km/h, the US National Hurricane Center said, putting it at the highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
While wind speeds could drop and downgrade Milton to a lesser category, the size of the storm was growing, putting ever more coastal areas in danger.
Late on Tuesday, the eye of the storm was 650km southwest of Tampa, moving northeast at 19km/h.
Milton is expected to maintain hurricane strength when it crosses the Florida peninsula, posing storm surge danger on the state's Atlantic Coast as well.
Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic, growing from a category one to a category five in less than 24 hours.
The arrival of Hurricane Milton further rattles a region still recovering from Helene's destruction. (AP PHOTO)
"These extremely warm sea surface temperatures provide the fuel necessary for the rapid intensification that we saw taking place to occur," said climate scientist Daniel Gilford of Climate Central, a non-profit research group.
"We know that as human beings increase the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, largely by burning fossil fuels, we are increasing that temperature all around the planet."
More than a dozen coastal counties issued mandatory evacuation orders, including Tampa's Hillsborough County.
Pinellas County, which includes St Petersburg, ordered the evacuation of more than 500,000 people.
Lee County said 416,000 people lived in its mandatory evacuation zones.
Hurricane Milton brought powerful winds and flooding to Mexico's Yucatan state on its way to the US. (AP PHOTO)
Mobile homes, nursing homes and assisted living facilities also faced mandatory evacuation.
In Fort Myers, mobile home-dweller Jamie Watts and his wife took refuge in a hotel after losing their previous trailer to Hurricane Ian in 2022.
"My wife's happy. We're not in that tin can," Watts said.
"We stayed during Ian and literally watched my roof tear off my house and it put a turmoil in us. So this time I'm going to be a little safer."
Bumper-to-bumper traffic choked roads leading out of Tampa on Tuesday, when about 17 per cent of Florida's nearly 8000 petrol stations had run out of fuel, according to fuel markets tracker GasBuddy.
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