ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Officials on Florida's west coast are urging people to get out now. Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 monster, is moving east across the Gulf of Mexico, with an expected landfall late tomorrow. Its greatest impacts are predicted to stretch from north of Tampa Bay all the way south, toward Fort Myers. If it stays on its current track, it'll be Tampa's first direct hit by a hurricane in more than a century. NPR's Adrian Florido is in Sarasota, south of Tampa, on Florida's Gulf Coast. Hi, Adrian.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What is the latest that the officials are saying about Milton's projected path?
FLORIDO: Well, the hurricane is, like you said, on track to hit Florida's Gulf Coast region tomorrow night. And whether the eye comes ashore in Tampa or a bit farther south in Sarasota, where I am, or down in Fort Myers, it's too early to say. The hurricane's trajectory can change. But officials are saying, at this point, it doesn't really matter because this massive system is going to affect a wide area. And aside from the dangerous winds and heavy rain, it's the storm surge - that wall of seawater being pushed ashore - that's going to be a matter of life and death. And here's what Florida Senator Rick Scott said when he was here in Sarasota today.
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RICK SCOTT: So if you're in a barrier island, or if you're in an area that - you're right along the water, and you're going to get 15, 10, eight feet of storm surge, six feet of storm surge, five, you're going to die. It's as simple as that. You're not going to survive it. You're not going to survive it. So what are you thinking, right? You've got to get out.
FLORIDO: Evacuation orders are now in effect for many hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people at this point, Ari.
SHAPIRO: And are people heeding those orders?
FLORIDO: As in most storms, some are not, but many, many, many people are. People across the region are packing up their cars and evacuating inland or heading north. Highways have been clogged, and transportation officials are allowing people to drive on the shoulders to ease the flow of traffic out of the region. Many residents are also relocating to one of the many shelters that counties started opening today on elevated ground.
SHAPIRO: You visited one of those shelters. What did you see?
FLORIDO: I did. It was at Booker High School here in Sarasota. It opened at 10 this morning. And by the time I left at noon, more than 200 people had checked in. A.J. Barber was one of them.
AJ BARBER: You ever seen Katrina in New Orleans - the aftermath of that? Well, that's probably what this is going to look like.
FLORIDO: He said he was thinking of his kids out of state.
BARBER: I got to make sure I'm safe so they still have a dad. And, you know, that's the biggest decision I got.
FLORIDO: Now, the shelter's manager, who is also the school's principal, Rachel Shelley, told me that if she fills all the classrooms and the hallways in her school, she's got room for 1,900 people, and she thinks it's going to fill up.
SHAPIRO: And people are still cleaning up from Hurricane Helene, which hit Florida not long ago. Is that affecting preparations for Milton?
FLORIDO: You know, the strength and the power of Helene is still fresh in many people's minds. It just happened. The debris from that storm is still piled up along roadways. And now the language that forecasters are using to talk about Milton is really scaring people. At the shelter, I met Debra Lortz. She's 62, a lifelong Florida resident. She told me she has never left her house for a hurricane. She's ridden out every single one in the last six decades - until now. She and her husband, Stephen, made the decision yesterday. They live two blocks from the water, and she said it was the warnings about that large storm surge coming that scared her.
DEBRA LORTZ: This is 15 feet they're calling right now, and we don't really know what's going to happen. We're banking on that barrier island, Longboat Key, to kind of take the brunt of some of it. But, you know, that island doesn't carry too much. It's going to run right over it, and we are the next hit.
FLORIDO: She told me that she knew of only one young couple on her street that decided to ride the storm out, and she's worried for them.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Adrian Florido, in Sarasota, Florida. Stay safe, and thank you.
FLORIDO: Thank you, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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