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The scope and strength of Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm barreling toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, has officials issuing dire warnings and urging everyone located in evacuation zones along the coast to leave before Milton makes its predicted landfall on October 9, 2024. In the wake of such frightening statements from authorities, some TV meteorologists and reporters have struggled to hide their emotions, including CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.
During a live interview with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor late on the evening of October 7, 2024, Collins was taken aback when the mayor issued a grave warning to her constituents, many of whom are still picking up the pieces after Hurricane Helene ripped through parts of the southeast in late September.
“Helene was a wakeup call, this is literally catastrophic,” Castor told Collins of the storm surge experts are predicting. “And I can say, without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re gonna die.”
Kaitlan Collins Calls Tampa Mayor’s Prediction an ‘Incredibly Blunt Message’
In response to Castor’s bleak warning, Collins was momentarily speechless, exclaiming, “Wow. That is, I mean — that is an incredibly blunt message, and I know you have a lot of experience dealing with these storms. You don’t say something like that lightly, Mayor.”
“I’ve never said that,” Castor replied, explaining that if the storm continues on the same path experts have projected, it will devastate her community.
“This is something I have never seen in my life,” she continued, “and I can tell you that anyone who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area has never seen anything like this before. People need to get out.”
“And your message is just, this isn’t survivable,” Collins said.
“If we have that predicted storm surge, it is not survivable,” Castor confirmed.
TV Meteorologists at Loss for Words Over Hurricane Milton
Many TV news meteorologists in the region have also shared their authentic reactions to the size of the storm they’ve been tracking on radar.
A report from longtime NBC6 meteorologist John Morales on the afternoon of October 7 has gone viral, with millions of viewers stunned to see him get choked up as he described just how big Hurricane Milton had become.
“It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane,” he told viewers, getting choked up as he reported, “It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours. Um, I apologize. This is just horrific.”
On the evening of October 7, Fox35 Orlando meteorologist TJ Springer tweeted, “I don’t really have words right now. #Milton is now in the top 5 for strongest #hurricanes ever in the Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean. Its pressure has now dropped below 900 mb with sustained wind at 180 mph. Prayers to everyone in the direct path. Stay with and depend on the @fox35orlando Storm Team. We’ll get through this together.”
Earlier in the evening, his colleague in the Fox35 weather center, Noah Bergren, tweeted, “This is nothing short of astronomical. I am at a loss for words to meteorologically describe you the storms small eye and intensity.”
According to Fox Weather, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has predicted Hurricane Milton will reach land near or just south of the Tampa metro area and move across the highly-populated Interstate 4 corridor and Interstate 75, which runs through Tampa, Orlando, Fort Myers and Sarasota.
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