Op-Ed: If Hurricane Milton is anything like as bad as it looks, get the hell out now.

A resident boards up his windows in Palm Harbor, Florida, ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected mid-week landfall – Copyright AFP Bryan R. SMITH

Tampa, Florida, is largely famous for being a major tourist spot and high-end residential city. “Things to do in Tampa” may include finding the place after Hurricane Milton.

This exceptionally strong hurricane has recorded gusts of 200mph and a baseline of around 180mph. To put that into perspective, Hurricane Katrina had sustained winds of 125mph.

Well-known meteorologist Noah Bergen was at a loss for words when publishing his Tweet about Hurricane Milton last night. The numbers fully justify his astonishment. A barometric pressure of 897 is extremely low. When I checked yesterday, the pressure was about 940. The hurricane somehow dropped 43 points overnight. This new lower pressure is the likely cause for its acceleration.

What’s different about this hurricane is not just its size. It’s about the same size as the state of Florida. It’s not meandering and changing course on the approach.  

Wind speeds exert pressure on structures. A gust of 200mph applies far more pressure than 180, due to the acceleration of the mass of air. How many structures are stressed to take 200mph winds? An F3 tornado has similar wind speeds. It’s not looking good for buildings or collateral shrapnel damage from debris.

Floridians seem to have taken the hint, and the main issue is lack of gas for evacuees. Disney World is still open for some baffling reason. It’ll take more than advice from Jiminy Cricket if the park gets a direct hit.

Of course, there has to be a lighter side to all this. According to Wired, “right wing influencers” aka paid morons, say Milton was geoengineered. The idea was to “kill Trump supporters and interfere with the election”, they say. Sure, it was, kiddies. That’s why they told everyone to evacuate, which is exactly what they’re doing.

QAnon is obviously still getting paid somewhere. Just break out the tinfoil headgear, you’ll be fine.

Prehistoric nobody-esque skanks aside, the risk of extremely large scale damage could cripple Florida’s budget and infrastructure for years, even with Federal support. The amount of business that could be trashed would be well into the billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, just get out, now. This thing obviously means business.