Storm set to hit Florida as Category 3 Hurricane Milton just week after Helene

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Just a week after Hurricane Helene devastated states in the southeast, tropical Storm Milton is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it heads towards Florida’s west coast.

Milton is due to turn into a Category 3 hurricane and make landfall on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center warned, adding there are increasing risks for parts of the coast that could experience “life-threatening impacts.”

“Milton is forecast to quickly intensify while it moves eastward to northeastward across the Gulf of Mexico and be at or near major hurricane strength when it reaches the west coast of the Florida Peninsula midweek,” the Center warned this morning.

Areas of heavy rainfall will impact portions of Florida today and on Monday ahead of Milton’s arrival, the Center warned, with heavy rainfall expected later on Tuesday through Wednesday night.

The state could see 120 mph winds on Wednesday morning, indicating a “potentially very impactful” hurricane.

Florida is still reeling from the impacts of Helene, a Category 4 hurricane that made landfall last week before it ravaged Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

More than 200 people died after the region was ravaged by Helene, causing widespread floods and power outages.

Hundreds of thousands are still without power a week after Helene hit — and now must somehow prepare for yet another storm.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been surveying the areas ravaged by Helene this week.

“There is real pain and trauma that has resulted because of this hurricane,” Harris said in Augusta, Georgia.

“We are here for the long haul,” Harris said. “There’s a lot of work that’s going to happen.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas echoed this sentiment, saying that the process of rebuilding after the storm could take years.

“In a moment like this, we put politics aside,” Biden said in Raleigh. “There are no Democrats, Republicans, there are only Americans. And our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly as we can and as thoroughly as we can.”

Donald Trump, however, has tried to make the hurricane recovery efforts political. While visiting North Carolina, he asserted the federal response included a “lousy treatment to North Carolina in particular.”

Days earlier the former president posted a Truth Social post falsely accusing the federal government as well as the state’s Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”