As Hurricane Milton brings potentially destructive conditions to much of Florida, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that emergency workers from the state will assist in response and recovery efforts.
Members of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency will be deployed to the site of the storm, though details on their arrival and tasks once there were unknown.
Milton has fluctuated in intensity as it approaches Florida and became a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday afternoon. Millions have been ordered to evacuate and bridges were closing as the storm was expected to bring massive surges, damaging winds and flooding rains.
Timing appeared to shift earlier Wednesday afternoon, with latest projections sitting between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET (7-9 p.m. CT), according to the NBC 5 Storm Team.
Earlier predictions had said the hurricane was expected to make landfall around Sarasota between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET Wednesday, or overnight. Forecasters continue to warn, however, that timing could continue to change throughout the evening.
The ferocious storm could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, engulfing the populous region with towering storm surges and turning debris from Helene’s devastation 12 days ago into projectiles.
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"This is it, folks,” Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out and you need to get out now.”
“Everybody in Tampa Bay should assume we are going to be ground zero,” Perkins added.
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The hurricane also sparked a Tornado watch in more than 20 Florida counties, including the Tampa area, Florida Keys and Miami-Dade county, with a tornado touching down on Interstate 75.
Gov. Ron DeSantis Wednesday said to people choosing to remain home on barrier islands, “just know that if you get 10 feet of storm surge, you can’t just hunker down with that.”
“If you’re on the southern part of this storm, you are going to get storm surge,” DeSantis said.
“It’s churning massive amounts of water, and that water is going to come out,” he added. “Man, if you’re anywhere in the eye or south, you are going to get major storm surge.”
