A state of emergency has been declared in dozens of Florida counties, and evacuations are underway as residents brace for Hurricane Milton. The Category 4 storm is expected to make landfall Wednesday, bringing life-threatening storm surges, devastating winds and torrential rain to Florida’s Gulf Coast, including Tampa Bay, just two weeks after the region was battered by Hurricane Helene. Local crews are scrambling to haul most of the debris left behind by Helene’s destruction ahead of Milton, which is expected to grow larger today as it grazes Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. On Monday, veteran meteorologist John Morales of Miami broke down on live TV as Hurricane Milton temporarily strengthened into a Category 5 storm over the Gulf of Mexico. 

John Morales: “It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane. It has dropped — it has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours. Um, I apologize. This is just horrific. … It is just gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico, where you can imagine the winds — I mean, the seas are just so incredibly, incredibly hot, record hot, as you might imagine. You know what’s driving that. I don’t need to tell you. Global warming, climate change leading to this and becoming an increasing threat.”

Milton is one of the fastest-intensifying storms ever recorded in the Atlantic. Its approach comes as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, is facing severe staff shortages, with just about 9% of its workers, or about 1,200 people, available to respond to Hurricane Milton.