Residents of Anna Maria Island, Florida, appear to have followed authorities’ warnings to leave their homes ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival.
City of Holmes Beach police found no one while making a final check Wednesday morning before leaving the island, the city’s police chief said.
“It was a ghost town when we just left the island. The island was protected. We made one last pass and I didn’t see anyone who was still there”, said William Tokajer to CNN.
Tokajer expressed his relief that residents had listened, after offering a sobering message to those who would have chosen to stay through the storm to “write your name and Social Security number on your leg.”
“We’re off the island until the storm passes, then there will be no fire, no police, no EMS, no first responders, no one to answer the 911 calls for service that come in there. We have locked down the island and will return after the storm passes and check safety before letting people leave,” Tokajer said.
“Our island was devastated by Hurricane Helene, and now we are getting punched in the gut with Milton. It won’t be good. We have a lot of debris,” the police chief said, noting that Helene’s remaining piles of debris could become dangerous as the storm floods the area again.
Almost unprecedented rapid intensification
Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified to a nearly unprecedented level, reaching Category 5 status due to record heat in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Currently, it is in category 4 and has had an updated route, allowing it to arrive in Florida at 11pm this Wednesday (9), local time.
It is expected to grow in size, meaning that while it may shrink in category, its dangerous impacts will be spread over a much larger area.
Hurricane Milton was considered the strongest storm on the planet in 2024, with sustained winds of 281 km/h.
Recently, Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a storm surge and made landfall in the swamp region as a Category 4 hurricane.
Authorities are asking residents — still recovering from Helene’s damage — to evacuate or prepare for another life-threatening storm.
This content was originally published in “Ghost Town”: Hurricane Milton warning makes residents flee in the USA on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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