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STORY: Florida ordered mass evacuations in the face of Hurricane Milton - which grew to a Category 5 storm Monday.In Madeira Beach, the streets were still full of debris from Hurricane Helene in late September, as locals braced for Milton.While Milton was still classed a tropical storm on Sunday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center says it "explosively" morphed into the strongest level storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.The NHC also says its the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean.On Monday Milton skirted the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on its way to Florida.It's predicted to make landfall on the western coast of Florida by Wednesday.The Center's Deputy Director Jamie Rhome warns there will be storm surges, flooding and power outages:"If you're in this red area, you need to be in action mode. You need to be taking action to protect your house, to protect your family. Now, it's not just going to be a wind threat. Let's look at the storm surge threat too. I think most people know now the Florida West Coast is incredibly susceptible to storm surge and that's why there is a storm surge warning now in effect from basically Flamingo down here in Everglades National Park, all the way up to just north of Cedar Key.""Somewhere in this purple area, not everywhere, somewhere in this purple area, we are predicting 10 to 15 feet of storm surge. To put that in perspective, I'm six feet tall. That's more than two of me high."Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and President Biden declared emergencies for Florida.Over half a million people were ordered to evacuate, in the state's largest evacuation since 2017 - and large lines of vehicles were seen slowly moving out of the Tampa area Monday.Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris urged people in the area to heed evacuation warnings."I cannot stress enough to all the folks in Florida in the Tampa area, 'please listen to evacuation orders.' Please listen to your local officials, because I know a lot of folks out there have survived these hurricanes before, this one is going to be very, very serious."She also called former President Donald Trump "extraordinarily irresponsible" for spreading falsehoods about the Biden administration's response to Hurricane Helene, and federal aid is in fact, available to survivors.In a visit to Georgia Monday, Trump falsely stated that Democratic President Joe Biden had been unresponsive to Helene's destruction.
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