Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) held another press conference Tuesday afternoon, saying there was “still a lot of uncertainty” about where the eye of Hurricane Milton would land. warned that “this is not just about Hurricane Milton.” It will affect the East Coast as well as the West Coast of Florida.
The governor said the storm has weakened over the past 36 hours and is expected to make landfall late Wednesday night or “in the early hours of Thursday morning.”
“There's still a lot of uncertainty as to where exactly the eye of the storm is going to be. The latest models say it's going to be somewhere in Manatee County, just south of Tampa Bay.” indicates the storm may be moving a little further south, he said.
DeSantis said the impact will be felt “far beyond the eye of the storm.”
“It could make landfall anywhere from Citrus County to Southwest Florida. We'll know more in the next 12 to 18 hours, but the impact of everything we see, not just the cone, is particularly strong on the Florida coast. “The storm surge will be even more widespread,” he said.
“If a storm were to hit, we would need a major landfall disaster declaration approved, which would allow for debris removal and personal assistance. Fifty-one counties remain under a state of emergency. Almost the entire Florida peninsula is under a state of emergency warning. The governor continued, noting that much of the attention is focused on potentially devastating storm surges along Florida's west coast. But he said Hurricane Milton is expected to move across the peninsula and onto the East Coast and “will likely remain a hurricane” with “significant impacts” across the state.
“So this is more than just an event about the West Coast of Florida,” DeSantis said. “That's probably where the initial impact will be the biggest, but the impact won't be limited there.”
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