Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is no stranger to the dangers of hurricanes, Wednesday urged everyone in the path of Hurricane Milton to heed evacuation warnings.
"When we get storm surge, it creates a tremendous amount of flooding," Suarez told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "The volume of water that it produces is beyond the capability of any pumping system, of any kind of infrastructure system that's in place. It's just too much water, so we have to heed the warnings from officials like the governor, like the mayor of Tampa, to evacuate the areas that are vulnerable."
There is space in Miami for people fleeing the storm, he added.
As of Wednesday morning, a storm surge of 8 to 12 feet of seawater was expected to flood the Tampa Bay area, USA Today reported. According to some estimates, the storm surge could reach as high as 15 feet.
"A 10-foot or 15-foot storm surge is not just dangerous at the point of where it breaches the beach or where it breaches some sort of a seawall," Suarez said. "Everyone who is being asked to evacuate who's in an evacuation area should take that seriously."
Miami-Dade County is under a tropical storm warning, so Miami will feel some of Milton's brunt.
Meanwhile, Suarez said Miami's urban search and rescue team is prepared to head to the Tampa-Fort Myers area once the storm is finished to assist people in the hurricane zone.
"We were in Haiti during the earthquake and we were in 9/11," Suarez said. "We were in the Champlain Towers right off the city of Miami when that building collapsed. That team will be coming right in behind the hurricane to assist people in the area, but I can't stress enough that you should take every precaution that is being recommended by local and state officials, particularly evacuation."
Suarez said there is space in Miami for evacuees, and he has urged friends in the Tampa area to come to his city.
"We always have to be careful where people go because these hurricanes can be somewhat unpredictable," he said. "Even though we're outside of the cone of probability of direct impact, you worry about some of the shifts of the storm and how it shifts directions. And it can be a bit unpredictable. But Miami does have the capacity right now."
However, Suarez said he was told Tuesday that traffic coming from the storm strike zone is an issue, as is the matter of getting gasoline, so people may have logistical problems getting to Miami.
Meanwhile, the Florida government and Gov. Ron DeSantis have done a "magnificent job for multiple years" with huge hurricanes, Suarez said.
"We've seen some massive storms ravage the state of Florida in the last few years, and he's been omnipresent and vigilant throughout the entire process," the mayor said.
He added that in terms of federal help, "the only thing you hope for is that it doesn't become political."
"There are plenty of resources," Suarez said. "I'm sure that they're... they've been strained because of the amount of storms and the sort of frequency of them and what comes after, potentially. So I think, you know, for us in local government and in state government, what we want is full cooperation, resources, and parallelization of the process."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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