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Hurricane Milton is growing stronger as it blows toward Florida's Tampa Bay region

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Hurricane Milton is growing stronger as it blows toward Florida's Tampa Bay region
News

News

Hurricane Milton is growing stronger as it blows toward Florida's Tampa Bay region

2024-10-07 07:55 Last Updated At:08:00

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Milton quickly intensified Sunday and is on track to become a major hurricane with the Tampa Bay area in its sights, putting Florida on edge and triggering evacuation orders along a coast still reeling from Helene’s devastation.

While forecast models vary, the most likely path suggests Milton could make landfall Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area and remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida into the Atlantic Ocean, forecasters said. That would largely spare other southeastern states ravaged by Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian Mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230 people.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday that it's clear that Florida is going to be hit hard by Milton — “I don't think there's any scenario where we don't have major impacts at this point.”

Hurricane Milton was centered about 815 miles (1,310 kilometers) west-southwest of Tampa on Sunday afternoon, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kmh), the National Hurricane Center said.

“You have time to prepare — all day today, all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” the governor said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”

In Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, officials issued voluntary evacuation orders for people along the barrier island beaches and mobile home parks. Mandatory evacuations are likely to follow.

With Milton achieving hurricane status, this is the first time the Atlantic has had three simultaneous hurricanes after September, said Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach. There have been four simultaneous hurricanes in August and September.

The St. Petersburg-Tampa Bay area is still cleaning up extensive damage from Helene. Twelve people perished as storm surge swamped the coast, with the worst damage along the narrow, 20-mile (32-kilometer) string of barrier islands that stretch from St. Petersburg to Clearwater.

DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Sunday to 51 of the state's 67 counties — home to more than 90% of the state’s nearly 23 million residents. The state’s Panhandle, which continues to recover from other recent storms, is expected to be mostly spared.

Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week's worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road, DeSantis said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, meanwhile, coordinated with the governor and briefed President Joe Biden Sunday on how it has staged lifesaving resources.

“We are preparing ... for the largest evacuation that we have seen, most likely since 2017, Hurricane Irma," said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The state has prepared emergency fuel sources and electric vehicle charging stations along evacuation routes, and “identified every possible location that can possibly house someone along those routes,” Guthrie said. People who live in homes built after Florida strengthened its codes in 2004, who don't depend on constant electricity and who aren't in evacuation zones, should probably avoid the roads, he said.

All classes and school activities in St. Petersburg's Pinellas County preemptively closed Monday through Wednesday as Milton approached, and officials in Tampa opened all city garages free of charge to residents hoping to protect their cars from floodwaters, including electric vehicles.

As many as 4,000 National Guard troops are helping state crews to remove the tons of debris left behind by Helene, DeSantis said, and he directed that Florida crews dispatched to North Carolina in Helene's aftermath return to the state to prepare for Milton. The Florida Department of Emergency Management is establishing a base camp at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball, to support the operations to remove debris ahead of Milton's arrival, the governor said.

“All available state assets ... are being marshaled to help remove debris,” DeSantis said. “We're going 24-7."

Air search and rescue teams on Saturday found 39 more storm survivors who were still stranded in western North Carolina, state Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said. So far, almost 6,600 people have been rescued, evacuated or assisted by search-and-rescue teams since the storm hit, the office said.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell defended her agency's response to the hurricane's destruction after Republicans’ false claims, amplified by former President Donald Trump, created a frenzy of misinformation across devastated communities.

“This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people and it’s really a shame we’re putting politics ahead of helping people,” Criswell told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, adding that it's created fear and mistrust among residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground across the southeast.

Criswell said the agency is already preparing for Milton.

“We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.

Federal disaster assistance for survivors has surpassed $137 million since Helene struck more than a week ago, one of the largest mobilizations of personnel and resources in recent history, FEMA said Sunday.

Some 1,500 active-duty troops, more than 6,100 National Guardsmen and nearly 7,000 federal workers have been deployed, shipping more than 14.9 million meals, 13.9 million liters of water, 157 generators and 505,000 tarps, along with approving more than $30 million in housing and other types of assistance for over 27,000 households, according to FEMA, the White House and the Department of Defense.

More than 800 people unable to return home are staying in lodging provided through FEMA, and 22 shelters are still housing nearly 1,000 people as mobile feeding operations continue to help survivors. The response to Helene won't let up during Milton and its aftermath, because FEMA has the capacity to address multiple disasters simultaneously, the agency said.

“My Administration is sparing no resource to support families as they begin their road to rebuilding,” Biden said. “We will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders – regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”

The hurricane center said Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the Florida Peninsula, the Florida Keys and the northwestern Bahamas should monitor the system’s progress. Heavy rainfall was expected Sunday ahead of the storm itself and will likely then combine with Milton's rainfall to flood waterways and streets in Florida, where forecasters said up to a foot (30 centimeters) of rain could fall in places through Wednesday night.

Meanwhile in the open Atlantic, Hurricane Kirk diminished to a Category 2 hurricane on Sunday, with top winds of 105 mph (165 kph), sending large swells and “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” to Bermuda and northward along the U.S. and Canadian coasts, the center said. Hurricane Leslie was also moving over the Atlantic Ocean, well away from land, with top winds of 85 mph (140 kph).

Chloe Fleming, left, and Maya Teixiera don't let the rain from approaching Tropical Storm Milton dampen the day during Oktoberfest in Oakland Park, Fla., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Chloe Fleming, left, and Maya Teixiera don't let the rain from approaching Tropical Storm Milton dampen the day during Oktoberfest in Oakland Park, Fla., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Nelson Hoyos loads sandbags for his business in Oakland Park, Fla., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, as Florida is in for a wet week as the storm nears the west coast. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Nelson Hoyos loads sandbags for his business in Oakland Park, Fla., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, as Florida is in for a wet week as the storm nears the west coast. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

This satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration taken at 7:41pm ET on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, shows Hurricane Milton, which quickly intensified Sunday and is on track to become a major hurricane with the Tampa Bay, Fla., area in its sights. (NOAA via AP)

This satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration taken at 7:41pm ET on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, shows Hurricane Milton, which quickly intensified Sunday and is on track to become a major hurricane with the Tampa Bay, Fla., area in its sights. (NOAA via AP)

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 4:50 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Tropical Storm Milton, center, off the coast of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (NOAA via AP)

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 4:50 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Tropical Storm Milton, center, off the coast of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (NOAA via AP)

As climate change leads to a seemingly endless stream of weather disasters around the world, countries are struggling to adapt to the new reality. Preparing to better withstand hurricanes, floods, heat waves, droughts and wildfires will take hundreds of billions of dollars.

And then there is confronting the root cause of climate change—the burning of fossil fuels like coal, gasoline and oil—by transitioning to clean energies like wind and solar.

That will take trillions of dollars.

Enter climate finance, a general term that means different things to different people but boils down to: paying for projects to adapt to and combat the cause of climate change. Financing related to climate change is especially important for developing countries, which don't have the same resources or access to credit that rich countries do.

International mega banks, funded by taxpayer dollars, are the biggest, fastest-growing source of climate finance for the developing world. Called multilateral development banks because they get contributions from various countries, there are only a handful of these banks in the world, the World Bank the largest among them.

How these banks allocate resources are some of the weightiest decisions made in defining how poorer nations can respond to climate change. They were a key reason why, in 2022, the world met a goal countries had set in 2009 to supply developing nations with $100 billion annually to address climate change.

At the annual U.N. climate conference that opens Monday in Azerbaijan, global leaders are expected to discuss how to generate trillions of dollars for climate finance in the years to come. The nonprofit research group Climate Policy Initiative estimates the world needs about five times the current annual amount of climate financing to limit warming to 1.5 C (2.7 degrees F) since the late 1800s. Currently, global average temperatures are about 1.3 C (2.3 degrees F) higher.

A new goal needs to reach higher and hold institutions and governments accountable to their promises, said Tim Hirschel-Burns, an expert at Boston University's Global Development Policy Center.

"The core of it is getting a goal that is going to catalyze the actions that fills the really significant climate finance gap that developing countries face, which is much bigger than $100 billion,” he said.

As the international community has come to accept the reality of climate change, the debate has shifted to the question of where the money to fund the energy transition will come from, said Dharshan Wignarajah, director of Climate Policy Initiative’s London-based office.

“The question is not ‘are we going to transition?’, but ‘how quickly can we engineer the transition?’” said Wignarajah, who helped lead the climate talks, called the Conference of Parties, when the United Kingdom was host in 2021. “That has forced finance to be ever-more prominent at the COP discussions, because ultimately it comes down to who pays.”

Developing nations are much more reliant on these banks for financing climate projects than industrialized countries.

In the U.S. and Canada, commercial banks and corporations provided funding for more than half of climate-friendly projects in 2022, according to Climate Policy Initiative. In sub-Saharan Africa, those private lenders only accounted for 7%.

This is because it is harder for developing countries to get low interest rates.

“If you’re Kenya, and you want to borrow from private lenders, they might charge you 10% interest rates because your credit rating isn’t very good,” Hirschel-Burns said.

But the multilateral banks have better credit ratings than many countries do. For example, the International Development Association — an arm of the World Bank and the top international aid provider to Kenya — has the highest possible rating from Moody’s Investor Service, while Kenya itself has a junk rating.

The banks borrow money with that better rating, then lend to developing countries in turn, offering a more reasonable rate than governments could get if they borrowed directly from private lenders.

The multilateral banks’ development goals are wide-ranging. They seek to improve people's health and the environment, expand energy access and end poverty. Addressing energy access has meant the banks have provided billions of dollars for fossil fuel power plants, according to an AP analysis, though their policies have improved and fewer such projects have been funded in recent years.

Investment in fossil fuels continues to rise worldwide, reaching $1.1 trillion in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. And multilateral banks continue to rank among the biggest funders of fossil fuel-prolonging projects, helping to “lock in a high-carbon pathway” for countries, according to a report by the Clean Air Fund, which lobbies for the funding of projects to improve air quality.

“This is development aid we're talking about, and it should be assisting countries to leapfrog,” said Jane Burston, CEO of the Clean Air Fund, referring to the idea that developing countries could industrialize with renewable energies and skip over development that rich nations historically made with fossil fuels.

“It's baffling why development assistance is being given to something that continues to make people unhealthy as well as harms the planet,” she added.

Seemingly contradictory actions can be seen in a loan made by an arm of the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It loaned $105 million toward rehabilitating coal plants in India, with their last loans toward the project going out in 2018, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Coal spews carbon pollution, contributing to climate change and creating breathing problems for people who are exposed. However, the improvements made coal plants more efficient and reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, according to project documents.

The Clean Air Fund's report estimated the World Bank provided $2.7 billion in “fossil fuel prolonging finance” between 2018 and 2022. During that time, the bank also loaned about 32 times the amount for renewables as they did for non-renewables in India, including $120 million for rooftop solar.

"Renewable energy support is always our first choice as we work to provide access to electricity to the nearly 700 million people who still cannot power their homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses," a World Bank spokesperson said in a statement.

The bank's policies still “selectively support natural gas as a transition fuel” if its research shows the project is low risk to the climate, the spokesperson said. The bank's recent policies require rigorous vetting for every project to make sure its investments reduce climate impacts.

The World Bank delivered $42.6 billion in climate finance in its most recent fiscal year, a 10% increase from the year before. And at the most recent COP, the bank promised nearly half of its lending will soon go toward climate finance.

In Vietnam, about half of power generation comes from fossil fuels, primarily coal power. The Asian Development Bank loaned about $900 million on coal in Vietnam, with their spending on the fossil fuel in the country ending in 2017. The bank's updated climate policies “will not support coal mining, processing, storage, and transportation, nor any new coal-fired power generation,” the bank said in a statement. The bank put $9.8 billion toward climate finance in 2023, and aims to finance $100 billion in climate-friendly projects between 2019 and 2030.

The country’s biggest growth area for energy is in wind. The Global Energy Monitor ranks Vietnam seventh in the world in planned wind power. And the Asian Development Bank committed about $60 million in loans toward wind energy in Vietnam between 2021 and 2022.

The banks have made broad commitments in recent years to align with the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. But those promises leave pathways open to continue funding fossil fuels, said Bronwen Tucker, global public finance co-manager at Oil Change International.

According to the green group's monitoring of the banks' commitments, all nine of the major banks tracked can fund gas projects in at least some cases. Rich countries should step in and fill the trillions of dollars in need for climate action with donations to less developed countries “to avoid climate breakdown and save lives,” Tucker said.

“The MDBs can't be climate bankers if they are still fossil bankers," she said. “Relying on banks that are locking in fossil fuels and the worst-ever debt crisis is not working.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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