Florida authorities on Tuesday increased calls to evacuate the population before the arrival of Miltonan “extremely dangerous” hurricane which is expected to reach the coasts of this peninsula in the southeastern United States during the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
Already affected by the destructive passage ofHelene ten days ago, “the entire Florida peninsula is under either a form of watch or alert,” state Governor Ron DeSantis warned Tuesday.
“ Helene was a wake-up call, it’s literally catastrophic,” Jane Castor, the mayor of the large city of Tampa, said on CNN on Monday. “I can say this without any drama: if you choose to stay in one of the evacuation zones, you will die. »
Milton could be “the worst storm in Florida in a century,” Joe Biden said on Tuesday, on the sidelines of a meeting with his advisers at the White House to take stock of preparations.
“You must evacuate now, it is a question of life and death,” the American president also told the residents of the third most populous state in the United States.
His vice-president Kamala Harris followed suit by asking residents to “take local officials seriously”.
“Floridians, you are tenacious people who have suffered a lot, but this is going to be different,” warned the Democratic candidate in the November 5 presidential election on ABC.
A sign of the seriousness of the situation, the White House announced that Joe Biden had decided not to go as planned at the end of the week to Germany and then to Angola.
“You have time to leave. So, please do it,” the Republican governor urged residents of at-risk areas on Monday.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned that Milton was “an extremely dangerous hurricane”, category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It was once classified in category 5, the highest.
The NHC called on residents to “prepare today for the arrival of Milton and evacuate if requested by the authorities.”
“Mortal danger”
The hurricane, which is moving from southwest to northeast in the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to make landfall in Florida overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, the hurricane was located in the Gulf of Mexico 880 km from Tampa, with winds reaching more than 230 km/h.
Before that, “devastating waves” and a “life-threatening storm” are expected Tuesday along the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the NHC warned.
Climate change makes rapid intensification of storms more likely and increases the risk of more powerful hurricanes by warming sea and ocean waters, scientists say.
Temperatures in the North Atlantic have been continuously evolving for more than a year at record levels of heat, according to data from the American Meteorological Observatory (NOAA).
According to weather expert Michael Lowry, “if the worst forecasts materialize for the Tampa Bay region, coastal flooding caused by Milton could be double those observed two weeks ago Helene “.
“Milton strengthened on Monday at a breakneck pace”, one of the “fastest ever observed in the Atlantic basin”, he added.
Generators, food, water and tarps are being distributed across Florida and many residents plan to leave.
“Irresponsibility”
In Tampa, dozens of cars line up to collect sandbags to try to protect their homes from expected flooding.
Chicago resident John Gomez decided to come to Tampa to watch over his vacation home during the hurricane.
“If I’m in Chicago and something happens, there’s nothing I can do,” the septuagenarian who came to collect sand told AFP.
In line, Luis Santiago says he fears that “everything will be flooded”.
His house is located near the coast, in an evacuation zone decreed by the authorities, and this 43-year-old man wants to protect it before heading inland to escape danger.
Rapid intensification
And NOAA warned at the end of May that the hurricane season, which extends from the beginning of June to the end of November, was shaping up to be an extraordinary year in the region.
The southeastern United States is only just recovering fromHelenea devastating hurricane that caused widespread flooding and damage in half a dozen states, killing at least 234 people. Emergency services are still working to help the many victims.
In the middle of the presidential campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump was quick to accuse the federal state, led by Democrats, of having done too little, too late, to provide assistance to the victims ofHelene.
The Republican had notably accused the Democrats of having “stolen money” from the federal natural disaster response agency, “in order to be able to give it to their illegal immigrants”.
Her rival in the November 5 election, Kamala Harris, castigated these statements on Tuesday. “This is the height of irresponsibility and frankly insensitivity,” the vice president said on ABC.
She had already accused the ex-president of “playing political games” around the hurricane Heleborn.
“Playing political games right now, in these crisis situations – we are at the height of it – is simply irresponsible and selfish,” criticized her rival in the November 5 election Kamala Harris.
And added: “It’s playing politics, instead of doing the job you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first. »