Florida has expanded its state of emergency as it braces for a major storm expected to hit the state’s western peninsula by midweek, after Tropical Storm Milton strengthened and was declared a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday.
Milton’s impending landfall comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction across much of Florida and other parts of the southeastern US, including North Carolina. The death toll stands at 230 people and is expected to rise.
Forecasters expect Milton to continue to develop and could approach a Category 3 hurricane or higher if it hits the Florida peninsula Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service said life-threatening storm surges and damaging winds could occur, and urged local residents to heed any evacuation orders that are now likely.
Residents in parts of Florida whose lives were turned upside down by Helene now worry that a second wave of catastrophe is imminent as the rubble left behind by the first disaster is moved in even more overwhelming rainfall.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday that while it remains to be seen where Milton will strike, it is clear Florida will be hit hard. “I don’t think there’s a scenario where we don’t have major consequences. at this point.”
As many as 4,000 National Guard troops are helping state crews remove debris, DeSantis said, and he ordered Florida crews sent to North Carolina in the wake of Helene to return to the state to prepare for to prepare for Milton.
“All available state resources … are being marshaled to help remove debris,” DeSantis said. “We operate 24/7… it’s all hands on deck.”
#Milton The hurricane is forecast to intensify rapidly as it moves over the Gulf of Mexico and will be a major hurricane when it reaches the west coast of the Florida peninsula midweek. Don’t focus on the fine details of the current forecast as there is still significant uncertainty in the… pic.twitter.com/299CNpAwxA
— National Weather Service (@NWS) October 6, 2024
Florida is the state that lies largely directly in Milton’s currently projected path, but the National Weather Service in Wilmington, North Carolina warned that local impacts in northeastern South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina are “currently expected to be high surf and there will be strong currents. together with gusts of wind along the coast”.
Joe Biden ordered an additional 500 U.S. troops to the hurricane-hit area of North Carolina on Sunday, bringing the total of active-duty troops assisting with the response and recovery to 1,500. That’s in addition to 6,000 National Guard personnel and 7,000 federal employees.
“My administration is sparing no resources to support families,” the president said.
The new storm barreling toward Florida’s west coast presents a whole new level of crisis for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Fema. The agency has already had to respond to swirling disinformation about Helene, which was amplified by Donald Trump and his surrogates during the presidential campaign.
Helene made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on September 26. It then tore through Georgia and North Carolina, both battleground states that are being aggressively fought over by the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns.
Fema executive Deanne Criswell told ABC News’ This Week on Sunday that the Trump campaign’s claims that millions of dollars of taxpayer money had been used for disaster relief to house undocumented immigrants were “plainly ridiculous and blatantly untrue.” Criswell condemned what she called a “truly dangerous story.”
She added that “this kind of rhetoric doesn’t help people. It is really a shame that we put politics above helping people.”
On Thursday, Trump told a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, had spent “all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants.” Then Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that “you have migrants being housed in luxury hotels in New York City.”
She added: “We put so much of our tax money into the crisis that didn’t need to happen.”
Trump’s claim that federal funds are being diverted from hurricane relief to immigrant housing is false. Fema does have an immigration housing fund known as the Shelter and Services Program, which received $650 million from Congress this year, but that is separate from disaster relief.
Fema has indicated that it has sufficient resources to deal with Helene, but may need additional resources in the event of further emergencies during the hurricane season.
Trump’s falsehoods have drawn some pushback from Republican leaders. Thom Tillis, the U.S. Senator from North Carolina, disputed the claim that money had been diverted to immigrants.
“We could have a discussion about the failure of this administration’s border policy and the billions of dollars it costs. But right now it’s not affecting the flow of resources into western North Carolina,” he told CBS News’ Face the Nation.
