As Hurricane Milton makes its way to an already reeling Sunshine State, residents around Tampa and its surrounds are girding themselves for what the state’s top official, Gov. Ron DeSantis, is calling “a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida.”

The monster storm, which ballooned from Category 1 to Category 5 in just over 18 hours, brought one meteorologist at NBC-TV’s Miami affiliate to tears while reporting during a live broadcast. As of late Tuesday, Milton remains at the highest register. The National Hurricane Center predicts the storm will make landfall late Wednesday night as a Category 3 storm with winds between 111-129 mph.

On Tuesday at the White House, President Joe Biden, who postponed an overseas trip to monitor Milton, warned that it “could be one of the worst storms in 100 years to hit Florida.”

The hurricane’s impending landfall led to evacuation orders for communities all along the coast, from the county home to Tampa, areas adjacent to the bay, and all mobile and manufactured homes on Tuesday night. 

With a predicted storm surge that could swallow a single-story house, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued a dire warning ahead of the evacuation deadline to any residents foolhardy enough to shelter in place: “So if you’re in it, basically that’s the coffin that you’re in,” the Associated Press first reported.

Earlier on Tuesday, with the storm expected to traverse the state, hurricane warnings were extended to parts of Florida’s east coast. Forecasters warn of a possible 10- to 15-foot storm surge in Tampa Bay, the highest surge ever predicted for that location.

According to the hurricane center, forecasts anticipate Milton will dump as much as 18 inches of rain as it traverses central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean, leading the happiest place on Earth — Orlando, a mere 85 miles east of Tampa — to begin closing down.

Orlando International Airport — the nation’s seventh busiest — ceased operations Wednesday morning. Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld closed this morning; the latter two plan to remain closed on Thursday, and Disney will likely follow suit.

Gutters Runneth Over

Of course, Milton comes nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm. Striking near the mouth of the Aucilla River in northern Florida’s Big Bend area, the storm had maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph.

Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings in northern Georgia, Tennessee and western North Carolina. According to the tracking site poweroutage.us, more than a million homes and businesses were initially without power in Florida alone. 

As Tampa’s evacuation order went into effect Tuesday night, Georgia still had nearly 53,000 residents without power, slightly more than half that of North Carolina, which saw tremendous devastation and where 99,000-plus homes remain in the dark as of this writing.

Helene has the ignominious distinction as the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. About half the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens more were killed in Georgia and South Carolina.

Helene’s raging floodwaters shocked mountain towns hundreds of miles inland and far from where the storm made landfall, including in the Tennessee mountains and Appalachia. The storm’s death toll stands close to 230, with recovery efforts ongoing. 

West-central North Carolina was hit particularly hard, including Buncombe County, home to Asheville, and Catawba County, where Steve Slepcevic, cofounder of Strategic Response Partners, a disaster management firm, was on the ground last week in Hickory. 

In an Oct. 3 YouTube dispatch from Hickory Airport, Slepcevic offered an unvarnished account of conditions on the ground, including mass evacuations of the elderly out of assisted living facilities and civilians banding together in private planes to augment government response efforts.

“All these independent pilots started coming together, and through our network, we pulled all types of other pilots in, assigned our paramedics to those flights, and sent them out there.”

One of those medics, Mike Saavedra, offered sage advice on storm preparedness. Although this advice is too late for Helene's victims, it remains worth mentioning as more violent weather becomes the norm nationwide.

“One of the most important things for anyone that is preparing for a disaster like this is to know exactly what you have when you have certain medications,” Saavedra said. “If you're on diuretics, if you have insulin, for any medication that you take, whether it's a cardiac drug or blood pressure drug, it's very important for you to know exactly how much of it you have and how long you can go until you need to get another dosage sent to you.” 

'Blue Roof' Army and Social Media

Social media has been helpful for homeowners waiting for roofing crews to begin repairs to seek out tarping to cover damaged roofs. One retired roofer on Facebook posted a litany of information for those seeking blue tarps and contact information for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Smaller roofing contractors, including an Atlanta outfit called Roofer Nextdoor, have posted notices urging patience and updating the public through social media — including Facebook and LinkedIn.  

“We have teams on the ground in #brunswick Ga. Each team is equipped with chainsaws, tarping materials and generators. #HereToHelp give us a call if in need of assistance.”

A Facebook post by Miguel Ramos Roofing in East Tennessee was particularly unsettling if true. The company said it had heard of some homeowners being charged upward of $1,500 to have their roofs tarped.

“We recently heard from Travis, who had leaks from the storm. Roofing companies were quoting him anywhere from $1,500 to $1,700 just to put up a tarp. We couldn’t believe it! With so much to worry about… your family’s safety, protecting your home, and managing expenses… we do it for FREE.”

Of course, with the good comes something less helpful, including a glut of misinformation that has been stymieing relief efforts. The Associated Press reported late Tuesday on false claims that people taking federal relief money could see their land seized, that $750 is the most they will ever get to rebuild, or that the agency’s director — on the ground since the storm hit — was beaten up and hospitalized.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters Tuesday that she has never seen the disinformation problem as bad as it’s been with Helene. The storm hit hard in North Carolina, a battleground state up for grabs in next month's presidential election.

With time growing short, the worst may be yet to come as Milton continues its path east across the Gulf of Mexico. As it gets closer to Florida’s western shores, county officials are expanding evacuation orders inland. 

Charlotte County on Tuesday evening extended its Hurricane Milton evacuation order further inland to “Zone C Yellow.” The additional evacuation zone, in the county southeast of Sarasota, includes residents in any zone who live in mobile or manufactured homes. According to population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, that's about 11% of the county's more than 202,600 people.

Consider donating to the American Red Cross for hurricane disaster relief HERE.