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President Joe Biden warned Florida residents to heed evacuation orders and avoid being trapped as Hurricane Milton approaches the state, calling the storm potentially the worst to hit the Sunshine State in more than 100 years.
“If you’re under evacuation or orders, you should evacuate now, now, now. You should have already evacuated. It’s a matter of life and death,” he said while addressing reporters in the White House after receiving a briefing on preparations for the storm.
The president also said he has been advised by the National Weather Service that the storm has exhibited sustained winds of over 180 mph and could hit Florida with a storm surge — a wall of water driven by the hurricane winds — as high as 15 feet.
Biden added that Milton has the potential to hit the west coast of Florida as a hurricane and remain a hurricane after cutting a path across the entire state from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean.
“This could be the worst storm to hit Florida in over a century. God willing, it won’t be, but that’s what it’s looking like right now,” he said.
The news of Milton’s potential for severe damage to Florida comes within weeks of the state getting hit by Hurricane Helene.
Biden previously approved emergency declarations authorizing federal disaster resources to be expended in the response to the previous storm, and he told reporters that he also approved pre-landfall emergency declarations to permit more resources to be allocated for Milton.
The president said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has also allocated 300 ambulances to Florida to move people “who can’t move themselves” out of health care facilities, and he pledged that the federal response to the storms in Florida and other affected states would not end “until the job is done.”
“I directed this team do everything It can to save lives, and ... help our communities before, during and after these extreme weather events and that's being done,” he said, adding that officials in the states being hit by these storms are getting whatever they need.
“I've spoken to all the political leaders in the region, some of them more than once, and I've told them anything [they] ask for, they can get given. And we've gotten overwhelming response, positive response from everyone — from the governors of Florida up to North Carolina, and mayors, leaders local [officials] have expressed their sincere gratitude for the work of FEMA and for the work of my entire administration,” he said.
“I've also surged thousands of federal personnel on the ground in the southeast and delivered every available resource as fast as possible. And my priority is to increase the size and presence of our effort, as we prepare for another catastrophic storm about to make landfall.”
Earlier in the day, the White House said Biden was cancelling this week’s trip to Germany and Angola to better oversee the hurricane response and recovery efforts.
“We're going to try to work those out later, but I just don't think I can be out of the country at this time,” he explained.
