Hurricane Milton: Another Monster Forming In The Gulf

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Another tropical weather system could bring catastrophe to the continental United States as the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season – previously marked by record inactivity – continues ramping up well after the historical peak for such storms. The new storm is also poised to strike as the administration of president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris face withering criticism for the federal government’s response (or lack thereof) to the last system to strike the American mainland.

The latest tropical threat? Milton. The thirteenth named storm of the year formed earlier this weekend off the coast of Mexico – and is projected to strike the west coast of Florida later this week.

Initial forecast tracks indicate the projected path of this storm – and the strengthening it is expected to undergo over the course of the next 72 hours – could pose a nightmare scenario for Florida’s west coast, particularly the city of Tampa. The threat is all the more pernicious seeing as broad swaths of Florida’s west coast were previously inundated during historic Hurricane Helene – seeing significant flooding and property damage.

As of 7:00 a.m. CDT on Sunday (October 6, 2024), Milton was located at latitude 22.6° N longitude 94.9° W – or approximately 860 miles west-southwest of Tampa, Florida. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 60 miles per hour and moving east at five miles per hour. Milton’s central pressure was 991 millibars and falling – meaning the storm is gaining strength.

Here is a look at Milton…

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“Milton has been moving slowly eastward overnight, and an eastward to east-northeastward motion is forecast during the next couple of days, followed by a faster northeastward motion,” forecasters with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida warned in their latest advisory. “On the forecast track, Milton is forecast to move across the Gulf of Mexico and approach the west coast of the Florida Peninsula by midweek.”

“Steady to rapid strengthening is forecast during the next few days,” forecasters warned, indicating Milton could “become a major hurricane while it moves across the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico.”

Hurricane watches and warnings for the Florida coast are expected to be issued later today. On Saturday (October 5, 2024), Florida governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in thirty-five Florida counties “ahead of (Milton’s) potential landfall on Florida’s west coast this week.”

DeSantis also ordered Florida’s emergency management division and the state’s transportation department “to coordinate all available personnel and resources to supplement local communities as they expedite debris removal in impacted areas.”

The goal of this effort? To minimize flying projectiles when Milton makes landfall…

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Milton’s emergence in the Gulf of Mexico comes just days after U.S. Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) lacked sufficient funding to do its job in the event another major hurricane were to strike the continental United States.

To the extent the agency has been doing its job, that is…

Mayorkas’ agency has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the influx of illegal aliens pouring across our nation’s unsecured southern border. At least $640 million has been appropriated this year under Homeland Security’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) to communities which accept illegal aliens. Last year, $780 million was appropriated under the auspices of SSP.

This money – which Biden/Harris officials deny has impeded FEMA’s responsiveness – is but a fraction of the total tab associated with the immigrant influx. As our media outlet previously noted, a report (.pdf) published by the U.S. House’s homeland security committee last November determined the annual cost of housing and providing for “known got-aways and illegal aliens who have been released into the country (since Biden became president)” is a staggering $451 billion. Per year.

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“The Biden-Harris administration has spurned the interests of the American people since day one, pushing for hundreds of millions of FEMA dollars every year, specifically for illegal immigrants,” House homeland security chairman Mark E. Green said in a statement.

The tone-deafness of Mayorkas’ comments come as the federal government recently announced additional funding for the war in Ukraine as well as humanitarian relief in war-ravaged Lebanon.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump has been harshly critical of the “America Last” priorities of the Biden/Harris administration as he campaigns for the White House.

“This has been the worst Hurricane response by a president and vice president since Katrina — and this is simply unacceptable,” Trump said on Saturday. “Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco, and all the people in North Carolina — no helicopters, no rescue. They’re offering $750 to people whose homes have been washed away — meanwhile, they send our money to other countries by the billions.”

Count on this media outlet to keep our audience in the loop on these tropical systems – including their formation and forecasted paths, their destructive impacts on our country and the fallout (political and otherwise) from their arrival.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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