Roads out of Florida’s third-largest city came to a standstill as hundreds of thousands of residents tried to flee Hurricane Milton after it turned into one of the most powerful storms on record in the Atlantic basin.
On Monday night the storm swelled to a top-level Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 180mph, threatening the long-feared scenario of a direct strike on Tampa — the most vulnerable metropolitan area in the United States for ocean surge flooding. It later weakened to Category 4, with winds up to 150mph.
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People living in mandatory evacuation zones in the Tampa Bay area were told by Jane Castor, the city’s mayor: “I can