this is what hurricane Milton looks like from space tonight it is gathering strength as it heads towards the West Coast of Florida the worst storm there in a century is how President Biden is describing it and it comes less than two weeks after another storm hurricane H Helen brought terrible devastation to the area leaving more than 200 people dead the mayor of tamper said hurricane Helen was a wakeup called Milton is literally catastrophic scientists say climate change and warmer seas are fueling these increasingly dangerous storms our correspondent Gordon Carrera reports now from Tampa in Florida
an exodus from Tampa long lines of traffic snaking out of the city tell you that the warnings are being taken seriously here Florida is used to hurricanes but the message has been that this time is different the city is still recovering from the last hurricane Helen which hit just 2 weeks ago and killed more than 200 in The Wider region with hundreds more still missing the water was up to here and that's from the last one two weeks ago and inside Tampa today there are desperate last minute preparations Steve Christ's dental surgery was hit badly
last time and he knows Milton promises to be much worse um I've lived here my whole life I'm 73 years old and we've never ever had anything like this ever and to have two in two weeks yeah that building's never flooded and I and I practiced tenry there for 44 years the speed and intensity with which Milton formed with Winds of 180 mph is what's caused real alarm even if it weakens that will not stop the massive storm surge which could be as much as 15 ft High hitting the coast double what Helen inflicted and
with tamper right in its expected path this is literally catastrophic and I can say without any dramatization whatsoever if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas you're going to die another sign of how seriously this is being taken was that President Biden cancelled foreign travel and issued his own warning orders you should evacuate now now now you should have already evacuated it's a matter of life and death and that's not hyperboy it's a matter of life and death at a sports stadium in nearby St Petersburg 10,000 thousand Camp beds are being prepared
for emergency workers who'll be trying to get the community back on its feet the power and danger posed by Milton is clear from these pictures of a crew aboard a research flight that went through the hurricane they were forced to hold tight as they were buffered by its winds and beneath them Florida is now preparing for the Hurricane's arrival well hurricane Milton will be the second powerful storm to hit Florida in less than two weeks and it is currently traveling across the Gulf of Mexico you can see its path there and warm Waters in the
Gulf of Mexico have helped it become a dangerous hurricane that is expected to make landfall as early as tomorrow now scientists say that climate change is to blame with much warmer Seas supercharging these hurricanes these are the normal range of temperatures for the Atlantic and this should be just about here where they are now but look how much warmer the waters are this year at or near the hottest temperatures on record the oceans absorb most of the extra heat that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trapped near Earth's surface so warmer Seas mean more water
evaporates and that allows storms to strengthen and grow well let's go and get the latest from Gordon Carrera who is in Tampa and this so soon after this the last hurricane what is the mood there tonight well it is one of fear I have to say uh the sense is that the clock is ticking ahead of Milton's arrival tomorrow the streets here are eerily empty really most people have left town but one thing you can see is the debris that's all around left over from Helen it's littering the streets here where I am and one
of the concerns is that it hasn't been cleaned up and that when the surge comes with Milton all of that debris is just going to get picked up and cause even more damage as it's pushed around the city so there is a lot of concern here about the potential impact but I think people have also been heeding those warnings about how serious this could be they've come from the mayor of Tampa right up to the president and I think people have have grasped the idea that even in a state and a region used to hurricanes
this time could be different Sophie
