Reuters. An expanding Hurricane Milton closed in on Florida’s west coast on Wednesday (October 9), spawning tornados and lashing the region with rain and wind hours ahead of its expected landfall near Tampa Bay, where it could deliver a life-threatening surge of seawater to waterfront communities already battered by Hurricane Helene.

 

As many as two million across Florida were ordered to evacuate, and millions more were directly in the projected path of Milton, which strikes just two weeks after Helene cut a swath of devastation through Florida and several other states.

 

Officials issued increasingly dire warnings on Wednesday as landfall, expected on Wednesday evening, drew closer.