Hurricane Milton reaches peak strength, President Biden says evacuation is a matter of survival

Florida [US], October 9: Hurricane Milton has strengthened into a Category 5 storm (the highest level on the hurricane scale) and is expected to make landfall on the midwestern coast of Florida (USA) on the night of October 9.
According to the US National Hurricane Center ( NHC ), Hurricane Milton is located about 775 km southwest of Tampa Bay, Florida , with maximum sustained winds of 270 km/h.
US President Joe Biden on October 8 called on people who had been ordered to leave before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida to "evacuate immediately." He stressed that Hurricane Milton could be the worst storm to hit Florida in a century, and said that urgent evacuation was a matter of life and death.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on October 8 that rising water on Florida's west coast could pose the most serious threat to life and property. Local officials have issued a series of advisories across western Florida. Water levels in the area could rise as much as 15 feet, according to NPR.
Governor DeSantis said there is a "large amount of equipment" at the Ocala, Florida site, including dump trucks, generators and other vehicles. The state has been focusing resources on different sites since the weekend to respond to Hurricane Milton, according to CNN.
"If you are in a storm surge warning area, this is an extremely life-threatening situation and you should follow all evacuation recommendations," NHC Director Michael Brennan said on October 8.
According to the latest NHC forecast, Milton is expected to fluctuate in strength over the next 36 hours and weaken to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall on the west coast of Florida. However, the NHC also warned that Milton will cause catastrophic damage.
According to FlightAware , 1,573 flights in the US were canceled on October 8. Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Corrections evacuated 4,600 inmates as Hurricane Milton is expected to hit the Florida coast on October 9.
Aside from Hurricane Milton, only 42 hurricanes have ever reached Category 5 strength in the Atlantic, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Before 2024, only two Category 5 storms have moved through the Atlantic basin in the 2020s.
According to CNN's latest storm news, the re-intensification of Hurricane Milton is related to the storm circulation replacement cycle that took place on October 8. After this cycle was completed, the eye of Hurricane Milton reappeared.
Meteorologist Chris Vagasky at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) assessed that the eye of Milton, where the storm's strongest winds were, caused more than 58,000 lightning strikes in just 14 hours. That is more than one lightning strike per second, which Mr. Vagasky described as "astonishing." According to CNN, Mr. Vagasky said the amount of lightning strikes in Milton could be comparable to other historic tropical storms such as Haiyan, which made landfall in the Philippines in 2013, and Patricia, which hit Mexico in 2015.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper