Category Archives: Florida

Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida as category 3 storm

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Powerful cyclone slams into coast, bringing deadly storm surge to Sarasota, Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers

A weakening but still tremendously powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night as a category 3, pushing ahead of it a massive and potentially deadly wall of water from the Gulf of Mexico, as well as “catastrophic” winds likely to cause significant property damage.

The cyclone, described earlier in the day by Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”, made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, just after 8:30pm ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said. The storm was bringing deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

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Risk-to-life warnings remain in place as Hurricane Milton downgraded to category 3 – as it happened

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Here is some footage from the town of Treasure Island in Florida, which shows already deserted streets as Hurricane Milton approaches.

Adria R Walker reports for the Guardian that when people don’t flee their homes due to weather crises despite warnings from government officials, there are typically two reasons why. That is according to Cara Cuite, an assistant professor in Rutgers University’s department of human ecology. She said they either don’t believe they’re at risk or that the risk is overblown, or there are situational or structural elements that prevent them from doing so.

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Seven tornadoes hit Florida in advance of arrival of Hurricane Milton

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Tornado watch remains in place ahead of storm’s expected landfall late on Wednesday or early on Thursday

Seven tornadoes have hit Florida in advance of Hurricane Milton, the National Weather Service in Miami said on Wednesday.

Hurricanes and tropical storms have the ability to produce tornadoes.

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Hurricane Milton: tropical storm-force winds reach Florida before ‘storm of the century’

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Storm weakens to category 3 ahead of expected landfall late on Wednesday or early on Thursday

Officials urged residents of Florida’s western coast to shelter in place if they had not already evacuated on Wednesday evening as Hurricane Milton prepared to make landfall in the next few hours.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) urged Floridians to prepare for a storm surge of over 10ft, flooding and devastating hurricane-force winds as the state prepares for what Joe Biden has called the “storm of the century”.

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Hurricanes like Helene twice as likely to happen due to global heating, data finds

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Analysis shows Gulf’s heat that worsened Helene 200-500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating

As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, fueled by a record-hot Gulf of Mexico, a new analysis has shown how the Gulf’s heat that worsened last month’s Hurricane Helene was 200 to 500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating.

Helene, one of the deadliest storms in US history, gathered pace over the Gulf before crashing ashore with 140mph winds.

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Floridians warned ‘you are going to die’ if they don’t evacuate as Milton nears

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Thousands of evacuees clog highways as storm projected to hit Tampa Bay on Wednesday restrengthens to category 5

Florida’s western coast was making emergency preparations on Tuesday for the impact of Hurricane Milton, with thousands of evacuees clogging highways, contending with fuel shortages, and the mayor of Tampa warning residents bluntly “you are going to die” if they stayed behind.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Milton would retain major hurricane status and “expand in size” as it approached Florida after passing the Mexican city of Mérida before swerving north towards the US.

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Trump marks 7 October anniversary and criticizes ‘weak’ Biden and Harris

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Republican nominee says attack – ‘one of the darkest days in all history’ – would not have happened if he were president

Donald Trump marked the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks, which he called “one of the darkest days in all of history”, with a commemoration for victims and hostages at his golf resort in Miami on Monday night, but swiftly turned the event into an attack on Kamala Harris.

He also repeated a previous claim that the attack on Israel would never have happened if he was still in the White House.

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Fema chief warns ‘dangerous’ Trump falsehoods hampering Helene response

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Misinformation spread by Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded recovery efforts

A slew of falsehoods about Hurricane Helene, including claims of funds diverted from storm survivors to migrants and even that Democrats somehow directed the hurricane itself, have hampered the response to one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the US, the nation’s top emergency official has warned.

Misinformation spread by Donald Trump, his supporters and others about the hurricane has shrouded the recovery effort for communities shattered by Helene, which tore through five states causing at least 230 deaths and tens of billions of dollars of damage. Many places, such as in western North Carolina, are still without a water supply, electricity, navigable roads or vital supplies.

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Hurricane Milton intensifies to category 5 as Florida braces for ‘major impacts’

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Storm could make landfall on Wednesday as state prepares what could be biggest evacuation since 2017

Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a category 5 hurricane, just two days before it is due to make landfall in Florida.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami issued the updated forecast on Monday after saying the storm had become a category 4 hurricane more quickly than initially expected.

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Still reeling from Helene, Florida braces for Hurricane Milton as it gains strength

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State official urges people to prepare for ‘largest evacuation that we have seen most likely since 2017 Hurricane Irma’

Florida has expanded its state of emergency as it braces for a major storm expect to pummel the state’s western peninsula by midweek, after Tropical Storm Milton gathered strength and was declared a category 1 hurricane on Sunday.

The impending landfall of Milton comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction through large swaths of Florida and other parts of the south-east of the US including North Carolina. The death toll stands at 230 people, and is expected to rise.

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Tropical Storm Milton expected to wallop Florida days after Helene

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Latest system forms in Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, with forecasters expecting upgrade to hurricane in a few days

Florida is expected to get walloped by another hurricane next week, just 10 days after it was hit by Hurricane Helene, which caused widespread storm surge and wind damage before it moved inland to cause devastating flooding.

The latest system, Tropical Storm Milton, formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. Forecasters expect the storm to quickly strengthen into a hurricane and rush toward Florida in the next few days.

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US south-east reels from ‘catastrophic’ devastation from Hurricane Helene

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Communities are stranded, over 200 people have died with more expected, and more than 700,000 are without power

Rescue crews in parts of the south-eastern US were still searching on Friday for those missing as they entered the eighth day since Hurricane Helene roared ashore in Florida and became the deadliest mainland hurricane in the US since Katrina in 2005.

The death toll could grow higher, having surpassed 200 on Thursday, while the sheer scale of the devastation from wind and floods has slowed efforts to find many people’s loved ones and also get supplies to stranded communities and restore power to more than 700,000 people.

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Hurricane Helene: more than 200 dead as search for missing people continues

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Hurricane that made landfall as category 4 last week is described as one of deadliest storms in US history

A week after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US, search-and-rescue teams continue to look for missing people in parts of the south-east that were devastated by the storm, and nearly a million people in the region remain without power.

Officials have reported at least 215 deaths across six states, and have warned that the toll is expected to rise as recovery efforts continue. A separate NBC News tally found that at least 202 people have died, including at least 98 in North Carolina, 19 in Florida, 33 in Georgia, 39 in South Carolina, 11 in Tennessee and two in Virginia.

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Over 120 dead and a million without power after ‘historic’ Hurricane Helene

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Biden says he will visit North Carolina after devastating storm destroys entire communities across several states

As the south-east US continues recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene’s devastation, the storm’s death toll keeps climbing, with more than 120 killed across several states.

Joe Biden will visit North Carolina, where the western part of the state has been devastated by flooding, on Wednesday.

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Hurricane Helene’s ‘historic flooding’ made worse by global heating, Fema says

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It will be ‘complicated recovery’ in five states, says disaster relief agency, with hurricane killing at least 91 people so far

The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 100 people, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating.

The storm killed at least 91 people, according to state and local officials in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Officials feared more bodies would be discovered.

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Florida Republican charged with threat to ‘call up hit squad’ to kill primary rival

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DoJ unseals indictment against William Braddock III, alleging he made threats against Anna Paulina Luna in 2021

The justice department has charged a Florida man for threatening to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” to kill his political opponent, the Republican congressional representative Anna Paulina Luna, in 2021.

The department unsealed an indictment against 41-year-old William Robert Braddock III of St Petersburg, Florida on Thursday, alleging that on 8 June 2021 he made multiple threats to hurt and kill Luna – identified as Victim 1 in the indictment – in a phone call with another individual, Victim 2.

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Ron DeSantis accused of ‘intimidation campaign’ against abortion rights

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Florida voters report law enforcement personnel visits that appear to be part of drive to block passage of Amendment 4

Ron DeSantis is making a concerted effort to maintain draconian limits on abortion access in Florida that have led to accusations the rightwing Republican governor is conducting a “state-sponsored intimidation campaign” against abortion rights and trampling on civil liberties in the state.

A near total ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect in Florida in May after the state supreme court ruled that the right to an abortion was no longer covered by the privacy clause in the Florida constitution.

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At least 64 dead and millions without power after Helene devastates south-eastern US

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Flooding and landslides strike southern Appalachians after hurricane pummeled region and wreaked havoc

At least 64 people have been confirmed dead and almost 3.5 million were without power on Saturday, after strong winds and torrential rain from Hurricane Helene wreaked unprecedented havoc across large swathes of the south-eastern United States.

Historic flooding continued over parts of the southern Appalachians on Saturday, as first responders worked to reach stranded communities in trying conditions while local authorities began to assess the scale of the damage and displacement.

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Florida university to host extremist after DeSantis-led lurch to right

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Next month, New College of Florida will welcome activist and writer Steve Sailer, a ‘proponent of scientific racism’

New College of Florida (NCF) will host the extremist writer Steve Sailer, who has been described as a “white supremacist” and a “proponent of scientific racism”, at a college-branded public event next month.

New College has made headlines since January 2023, when the rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, vowed to transform it from a university known for liberal values into a conservative institution, and installed a new board of trustees including the rightwing culture warrior Christopher Rufo. That board in turn appointed DeSantis’s “close ally” Richard Corcoran as the new college president, in which role he makes a $699,000 salary.

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Hurricane Helene: dozens dead as storm pummels south-eastern US

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Residents in several states suffer power outages and heavy flooding as officials warn of ‘very dangerous environment’

Helene has reportedly killed at least 40 people across four states and inflicted about 4m power outages and dangerous flooding across the south-eastern US after crashing ashore in north-western Florida late on Thursday as a potent category 4 hurricane.

The storm – which registered maximum sustained winds of 140mph – weakened to a tropical storm and then to a depression as it moved across Georgia as well as the Carolinas on Friday afternoon, when residents whose communities experienced Helene’s peak effects more directly were only just beginning to fathom the recovery process ahead.

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