Regardless of the category rating when it hits Florida, Hurricane Milton will bring "life-threatening impacts" in a large part of the state, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan told Newsmax on Tuesday.
After reaching Category 5 status in the Gulf of Mexico waters, Milton had been reduced to a Category 4 by the time Brennan appeared on "Wake Up America."
"The main message for people in Florida is that we're expecting a powerful, large, major hurricane to make landfall tomorrow [Wednesday] evening or landfall tomorrow evening or tomorrow night along the west coast of Florida," Brennan told co-hosts Sharla McBride and Alison Maloni.
"The size of Milton's wind field is going to double at least between now and when we expect landfall to occur. So, we're going to see widespread life-threatening impacts."
Brennan explained that intense hurricanes such as Milton "will fluctuate up and down on the time scale of just a few hours."
"We're seeing some signs that there's an eyewall replacement cycle going on, so we can see the peak winds come down, the storm gets bigger," Brennan said.
"And then those peak winds can increase again. So, we're likely to see it fluctuate between a high-end Category 4, Category 5 over the next day or so."
Milton's path showed the storm headed toward the Tampa area, with people and towns being affected in a large section of the state's western coastline.
"The potential for 10- to 15-feet of storm surge above ground level, particularly in this area from, say, Clearwater, down through Tampa, St. Petersburg, down to Sarasota. That's the area we're most concerned about," Brennan said.
"But there's going to be life-threatening storm surge inundation hundreds of miles to the south along the west coast of Florida in places like Port Charlotte, Cape Coral, Fort Myers, even down to Naples."
The director said Milton’s "fast forward speed" means hurricane conditions likely will expand eastward across the Florida peninsula.
"Everywhere you see in red here is under a hurricane warning now," Brennan said while pointing to a graphic of Florida. "Tampa, Orlando, Melbourne, up to St. Augustine, Ocala.
"So this entire I-4 corridor is at risk of seeing, you know, damaging hurricane force winds, widespread tree damage, structural damage, power outages with the additional threat of life threatening flash flooding due to as much as 18 inches of rain."
McBride asked Brennan to explain how devastating the expected storm surge could be.
"It can be destructive because not only are you going to see 10- to 15-feet of inundation above ground level, but destructive wave action on top of that," he said. "And that's why people are generally asked to leave those storm surge evacuation zones, because it's not a survivable environment. You can have your home destroyed, washed away, your evacuation routes cut off.
"We've seen people die in previous hurricanes waiting until the water starts to rise and they try to get in their car and drive out and they get swept away. So don't become a statistic like that. And then even if you're in one of these storm surge zones, if you survive the surge, you're going to be left in a very vulnerable environment after the storm.
"If you have a medical emergency or an accident, there may not be anybody to come help you. And it's going to be a very dangerous post-storm environment in this region."
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Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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