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Hurricane Milton barreled toward Florida's battered Gulf Coast on Tuesday as an enormous Category 5 storm, triggering massive traffic jams and fuel shortages as officials ordered more than 1 million people to flee before it slammed into the Tampa Bay area.
DON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN
A catastrophic storm surge is expected to inundate Florida's Gulf Coast from Hurricane Milton, raising water levels by up to 15 feet above ground level in areas of onshore winds.
The FOX Forecast Center warns of a likely record-breaking storm surge, potentially surpassing anything seen in over a century in the Tampa Bay area. This comes just weeks after Hurricane Helene caused significant damage along the state's coastline.
"Yes, you might have ‘been through hurricanes before,’" says FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross. "But you weren't through the 1921 storm that put water over much of Pinellas County, or the 1848 hurricane that put 15 feet of Gulf water where downtown Tampa is today."
Storm Surge and Hurricane Warnings have been issued for portions of Florida's west coast.
(FOX Weather)
The FOX Forecast Center said the angle of approach will have the core of the storm moving perpendicular to the coastline. This track keeps everywhere south and east of it from the worst of the winds, which will push water rapidly onto the coastline.
Meteorologists often advise against focusing on the center line of the forecast cone, but in this case, the final landfall will play a huge role in who sees the worst storm surge. Every 10 miles up or down the coast will matter, the FOX Forecast Center said.
Storm surge amounts will likely easily surpass 10 feet and could be as high as 15 feet, flooding tens of thousands of structures.
"Storm surge is the deadliest aspect of a hurricane," FOX Weather Meteorologist Craig Herrera said.
(FOX Weather)
Storm surge will also be felt along the Atlantic coast of Florida from the Space Coast to the First Coast. This includes cities such as Daytona Beach, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville Beach.
FILE – Watch: Storm surge closes in on elevated camera in Cedar Key, Florida
Hurricane Helene brought several feet of storm surge to Florida, including to this neighborhood in Cedar Key.
Storm surge could also lead to moderate to major flooding along the Georgia and South Carolina coast.
(FOX Weather)
A hurricane with maximum sustained winds of at least 157 mph is considered to be a Category 5 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
A Category 5 is the strongest a hurricane can get on the scale, as there is not a Category 6 rating.
The wind scale does not take into account flooding, erosion, tornadoes, or storm surges that are deadly during a Category 5 hurricane.
According to NOAA, many homes are completely destroyed by either the catastrophic wind or storm surge.
Fallen trees and power poles will cut off regions for weeks, with restoration efforts taking months to complete.
Category 5 hurricane explainer
(FOX Weather)
Along the coast, a Category 5 hurricane can produce a storm surge of greater than 18 feet, which can propagate many miles inland.
Prior to the arrival of a storm, widespread evacuations are issued, which can lead to significant travel delays.
After the passage of a Category 5 hurricane, clean-up of debris may take a year or more to complete.
Despite warming oceans, these major hurricanes are still considered to be rare, with only 40 documented events across the Atlantic basin.
Only four of the more than three dozen hurricanes have struck the U.S. at Category 5 strength.
There have been four Category 5 landfalls in the U.S. since the 1920s.
(FOX Weather)
Category 5 strikes on the U.S.
Labor Day Hurricane (185 mph) - 1935
- Location: Long Key, Florida
- U.S. damage: $100 million
- The unnamed hurricane of 1935 remains the strongest known storm to make landfall in the U.S. The storm caused catastrophic damage in the Florida Keys, where a storm surge of more than 18 feet occurred. According to historical records, hundreds are believed to have perished in the storm.
The track of the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane.
(FOX Weather)
Hurricane Camille (175 mph) - 1969
- Location: Waveland, Mississippi
- U.S. damage: $1.4 billion
- Camille was the second-strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the U.S. A storm surge of more than 20 feet destroyed coastal Mississippi, while wind and rain damage was reported from the Gulf Coast to Virginia. The hurricane was fairly compact, with hurricane-force winds extending outwards 50-60 miles from the center.
Hurricane Camille made landfall as a Category 5 storm on Aug. 17, 1969.
(FOX Weather)
Hurricane Andrew (175 mph) - 1992
- Location: Elliott Key, Florida
- U.S. damage: $27 billion
- Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida as a Category 4 hurricane but was upgraded to Category 5 strength after a NOAA reanalysis. After exiting Florida into the Gulf, the hurricane made a secondary landfall in Louisiana as a Category 3 cyclone. Despite being intense, Andrew was a rather small storm with tropical storm force winds only extending out 90 miles from the center. The catastrophic hurricane led to stricter building codes across the state.
The wrath of Hurricane Andrew: 30 years later
Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida 30 years ago today as a Category 5 hurricane. FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross shares what it was like for him covering the devastating storm.
Hurricane Michael (160 mph) - 2018
- Location: Mexico Beach, Florida
- U.S. damage: $25.1 billion
- Michael rapidly intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in less than 36 hours. The cyclone’s tight organization caused significant wind damage throughout southern Georgia. The storm was the most intense cyclone to strike the U.S. during October and the fourth-strongest hurricane ever to hit the mainland.
Hurricane Michael's track at landfall in 2018.
(FOX Weather)
The rumors surrounding Hurricane Helene are many. There are false claims that people taking federal relief money could see their land seized. Or that $750 is the most they will ever get to rebuild. Or that the agency’s director — on the ground since the storm hit — was beaten up and hospitalized.
As the U.S. agency tasked with responding to disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been fighting misinformation since Helene slammed into Florida nearly two weeks ago and brought a wide swath of destruction as it headed north. The false claims are being fueled by former President Donald Trump and others just ahead of the presidential election, and are coming as the agency is gearing up to respond to a second major disaster: Hurricane Milton is set to strike Florida on Wednesday.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters Tuesday that she has never seen the disinformation problem as bad as it’s been with Helene, which hit hard in North Carolina, a state key to winning the election.
“It’s absolutely the worst that I have ever seen,” an uninjured Criswell said.
She said the online rumors are demoralizing for staff or volunteers who have left family behind to deploy to a disaster zone. And she said there’s a real risk that local residents will hear these rumors and be too afraid to apply for the help they’re entitled to.
Drew Reisinger, a Democratic registrar of deeds in Buncombe County, North Carolina, said part of the problem is that the affected regions have been largely without means of communication, so outside voices have an easier time setting the narrative.
“It’s almost easier to let misinformation happen when all of our phone lines and internet lines have been down for so many days that we can’t refute it,” he said.
For days after Helene hit, his office did wellness checks when relatives or friends reached out to say that they hadn’t been able to get in touch with people in the area. The vast majority of people were OK. But at one point, his office said it had done 15,000 wellness checks and that was mistakenly interpreted as meaning 15,000 people were missing.
He pushed back on suggestions that relief supplies weren’t getting to people.
“Even in my office and the registered deeds office, we are taking so much stuff out into every holler, and we’re finding that there’s already so much food and water at every local Baptist church ... at the Elks Club and at the homeless shelter,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, a North Carolina Republican, put out a statement Tuesday debunking “outrageous rumors” that FEMA is halting trucks from bringing in supplies, abandoning rescue efforts to bulldoze the mountain town of Chimney Rock, is running out of money and more. FEMA also has set up a website debunking conspiracy theories.
But others questioned where FEMA and other help has been. Pete Loftin and Crystal Pierce Clontz were talking Monday outside a donation center set up in Sunny View, North Carolina. They compared notes about how many bars they had been able to get on their cellphones — not many. Loftin had spent two days trying to cut his way out of his damaged driveway but wasn’t sure how he could even apply for FEMA help.
“We all come together and are fending for ourselves,” he said.
FEMA said Tuesday that federal assistance for survivors of Helene, which has killed 236 people across six states, has hit $286 million. It’s also sent about half a million tarps, 210 generators, more than 16 million meals, and other supplies to the affected regions.
This is not the first time that rumors have run rampant following a disaster, although experts say social media has supercharged the phenomenon. Criswell said they ran into similar problems in 2023 after a massive wildfire in Maui.
During Helene, false claims have swirled that residents will only get $750 from FEMA and nothing more. That amount specifically refers to one-time payments that people can receive for immediate needs like buying medicine or baby food. People also can apply for a host of other types of assistance, like money for rent while they’re displaced or money to store their belongings while they repair their homes.
The agency also has been falsely accused of confiscating donations intended for Helene and pivoting those supplies to Ukraine. Those are separate pots of money distributed by Congress.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has tracked the disinformation and misinformation circulating in Helene’s wake. The London-based think tank that tracks online hate, disinformation and extremism said it found 33 posts on the platform X containing claims already debunked by FEMA or others that had generated 160 million views as of Monday.
After a disaster, there’s usually a period where residents work together to dig out and get supplies to strangers and friends alike, said Jeannette Sutton, an assistant professor at the University of Albany who studies how best to communicate with people during a disaster.
But at some point, there is often a transition where that altruism is replaced by a feeling of competition for resources. She’s concerned about what disinformation could do to push communities into competition even faster.
“You can imagine that if people started to come in from the outside kind of stirring things up, that that could help to kind of push people into that more corrosive environment,” she said.
It’s all coming as FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which is set to hit Florida’s Tampa region Wednesday. Agency officials have said repeatedly that they can respond to multiple disasters at once — a message that Criswell hammered home Tuesday.
“FEMA has done this before. We manage complex incidents. We’ve managed multiple complex incidents,” she said.
Craig Fugate, who was FEMA administrator during the Obama administration and before that was Florida’s director of emergency management, reinforced that message.
He said the agency historically has been designed to be able to respond to two major disasters at any one time as well as a number of medium to small disasters. They have layers of staffing that can be deployed, ranging from reservists who get called up to work a disaster to staff at headquarters who agree when they’re hired to deploy as needed.
The agency can pull staff working on long-term disaster recovery to focus on what’s needed immediately — such as Milton's response — and can pull from other parts of the Homeland Security Department if needed, Fugate said.
Criswell said the agency has enough money right now to respond to both Helene and Milton. However, she did raise concerns that the agency could run into problems around December or January if it doesn’t get more funding. In that case, they might have to pull back from long-term recovery projects to conserve money for the next big disaster, unless they get more funding from Congress.
Another agency key to disaster recovery is ringing the alarm that funds are running low. The Small Business Administration gives loans to uninsured or underinsured homeowners and to businesses to help them rebuild. President Joe Biden said in a letter to Congress that aid could run out “in a matter of weeks” if more federal funding is not approved.
Golden hashbrowns, gravy-smothered biscuits and crispy waffles with a hearty helping of maple syrup are among the classic Southern comfort foods. But when hurricanes tear through Southeastern towns, the hot meals and bold yellow signs of the local Waffle House provide another kind of comfort.
If a Waffle House stays open in town, even in a limited capacity, neighbors are reassured that the coming storm is unlikely to cause devastation. A closed location of the dependable diner chain has come to indicate impending disaster. The metric is known as the Waffle House Index.
What might sound like silly logic has become one of the most reliable ways for Southerners — and even federal officials — to gauge a storm’s severity and identify communities most in need of immediate aid.
About two dozen Waffle House locations remained closed in the Carolinas and the chain’s home state of Georgia on Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the states were among those battered by Hurricane Helene. Several other locations were open but serving a limited menu.
As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida communities still recovering from Helene, many Waffle House locations along the Gulf Coast, including those in Tampa, Cape Coral, and St. Petersburg, have closed in preparation.
What is the Waffle House Index?
The South’s favorite disaster authority provides an informal measure of how significantly a storm will affect or has affected a community.
A map of the chain’s over 1,900 locations, concentrated in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, helps residents of storm-prone states assess whether they’re likely to lose power, experience severe flooding, or endure other extreme conditions that might cause a resilient restaurant to close its doors. For some, it’s a telltale sign of whether they need to evacuate.
Waffle House is known not just for serving breakfast 24/7, 365 days a year, but also for its disaster preparedness. For decades, people across the South have noticed that the local Waffle House seemed to be the only business still open during a storm or the first to reopen after it passed.
The restaurant chain’s reputation for remaining open when people desperately needed a place to warm up, charge devices, and grab a hot meal became a fairly reliable — albeit amusing — source to help track recovery efforts.
How does the index work?
Waffle House’s social media shares color-coded maps of its restaurant locations in certain regions that will soon be hit or are recovering from storm damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also offers some live tracking.
Green means the location is serving a full menu, indicating minimal damage in the surrounding area. The lights are on and the syrup is flowing.
Yellow means the restaurant is serving a limited menu, a signal that it’s pulling power from a generator and might have a low food supply. The area might not have running water or electricity, but there’s enough gas to fry up bacon for hungry customers.
Red means the location is closed, a sign of unsafe operating conditions and severe destruction to the restaurant or nearby communities.
How did the index start?
Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate has said he thought the Waffle House Index while leading Florida’s emergency management efforts in 2004. He had been searching for something to eat while surveying the devastation left by Hurricane Charley and was only able to find a Waffle House serving a limited menu.
His team began to notice other open Waffle Houses in communities without power or running water. The restaurants eventually became a key feature on a color-coded map that his team provided to help the public and local officials identify where storm damage was most severe.
Fugate continued to use his color-coded map when he joined FEMA under President Barack Obama. He was the agency’s administrator in 2011 when a deadly tornado tore through the town of Joplin, Missouri. Both of the town’s Waffle Houses reportedly stayed open.
The restaurant chain’s disaster readiness is no coincidence. Seven locations were destroyed and 100 more shut down in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, but company executives saw business skyrocket at restaurants that reopened quickly.
They soon embraced a business strategy centered around keeping their restaurants operable during and after a disaster, according to the company’s website. The chain said it has invested in portable generators, bought a mobile command center, and trained employees on what they can still serve if they lose electricity.
What does the index say about Hurricane Milton?
Waffle House has closed many Florida locations before Hurricane Milton has made landfall, indicating the damage will likely be severe.
Milton was upgraded back to a Category 5 storm Tuesday as it churned toward Florida’s west coast. The ferocious storm could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St. Petersburg, engulfing the populous region with towering storm surges and turning debris from Helene’s devastation into projectiles.
NOAA’s brave crew flew over the Gulf to gather vital data on Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards Florida. pic.twitter.com/utkdQA1E5i
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) October 9, 2024