Redirected: Milton Could Be Among ‘Most Destructive Hurricanes on Record,’ NHC Warns; Flagler Readies for Flooding; Cancellations Multiply

Last Updated: 6:42 p.m.

Monday, 6:30 p.m.–Hurricane Milton has broken the National Hurricane Center’s website: interest in the monster Category 5 storm, now with sustained winds of 180 miles per hour–one of the most intense hurricanes ever recorded–had crashed NHC’s site in early evening Monday, as Florida’s midsection was bracing for a direct hit in the Tampa Bay area and Flagler County was preparing for severe impacts and potential hurricane-force winds that it did not record even during Hurricanes Mathew and Ian in 2016 and 2017.




Hurricane Milton went from a Category 2 to a Category 5 hurricane in a matter of hours today. The storm was expected to weaken somewhat before making landfall overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, but also broaden. Flagler County continues to be north of the expected path, especially in the European forecasting model, generally the most accurate of the models. That’s a silver lining for the county. But Flagler will also be on the side of the storm heaviest hit by rain. The county is now under hurricane watch.

Evacuation orders are likely by Wednesday in Flagler County for specific areas, including the entire barrier island–including Flagler Beach and Beverly Beach–from the St. Johns County Line to the Volusia County line, Flagler Beach neighborhoods along Palm Drive, Lambert Avenue , Flagler County and Flagler Beach neighborhoods along John Anderson Highway, and Marina del Palma, Bulow RV Park, and Palm Coast Plantation areas south and north of Riverwalk Drive.

At 4 p.m. Monday, the storm was about 675 miles southwest of Tampa, with sustained winds of 180 miles per hour, moving east at 10 miles per hour. “Milton is a potentially catastrophic category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale,” the National Hurricane Center warns. “Regardless, the system is expected to be a large and powerful hurricane at landfall in Florida, with life-threatening hazards at the coastline and well inland. Residents in Florida should closely follow the orders from their local emergency management officials, as Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.” Its hurricane-force winds are extending 30 miles from the center, and tropical-storm force winds extending up to 80 miles. That means even if Milton were to cross along the I-4 corridor, Flagler County would experience severe impacts and widespread power outages.

Preparations in Flagler County were continuing on Monday. Courts will be open Tuesday but closed Wednesday and Friday. Flagler County schools will close after classes on Tuesday, with afternoon activities–but not extended day, the school-based child care program–cancelled. Schools will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday. Private schools generally follow the school district’s lead. All local colleges, including Daytona State, the University of Central Florida and the University of North Florida, have cancelled classes starting Tuesday.




Flagler County government and the public library will close Wednesday and Thursday.

In Palm Coast, garbage collection services have been canceled for Wednesday and Thursday. This includes yard debris and recycling. The next pickup day will be the regularly scheduled pickup day.

The City’s Customer Service call center is operating on a 12-hour basis, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with the potential to increase to 24-hour operations until the storm passes. City staff can only assist with city-related issues. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please dial 911. The Customer Service phone number is 386-986-2360 or residents can submit a case through Palm Coast Connect.

Hurricane Milton Already Cat 5; Foot of Rain Possible in Flagler, Raising Flooding Concerns; Cancellations Multiply; Sandbag Station Up

Monday, 11 a.m. update–If Hurricane Milton would have more accurately been called Hurricane Maserati: the storm’s sustained winds went from under 100 miles an hour just six hours ago to 155 mph at last check by the National Hurricane Center, or just one mile per hour below Category 5 strength. The Hurricane Center called the rapid intensification “remarkable.”

The center has also nudged its path slightly northward, which bodes ill for Flagler County. The county is fully within the cone of probability, which stretches north almost to the Florida-Georgia border. Local officials and the National Weather Service in Jacksonville are cautioning of the possibility of up to a foot of rain, but that would eb stretched between now and Sunday. Still, grounds are saturated already.




“Milton is forecast to become a category 5 hurricane later today and become a large hurricane over the eastern Gulf of Mexico,” the National Hurricane Center said at 11 a.m., though it may lose some strength just before landfall in Florida on Wednesday night, but the storm is also expected to grow larger by then. Storm surge in Tampa Bay is predicted at 8 to 12 feet.

Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin signed a local emergency declaration at 10 a.m. Officials were following suit in other local cities and the county. Flagler County schools will close Wednesday through Friday.

Sandbag operations:

• Indian Trails Sports Complex, 5455 Belle Terre Pkwy, Palm Coast. This is a self-service station, and residents must be able to fill and load the sandbags into their vehicles. Sand and sandbags are available. Please bring a shovel.
• 100 Fin Way at the corner of Belle Terre Boulevard south of State Road 100. This is a self-service station but assistance will also be provided beginning Monday, October 7, 2024, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. and again on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 8 a.m.
• Flagler Beach: Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church, 915 North Central Ave., Monday starting at 9 a.m.
• Flagler Beach Fire Station, 320 South Flagler Avenue, Monday starting at 9 a.m.
• Hidden Trails Community Park in the Mondex, 6180 Mahogany Boulevard, Bunnell, from 10 a.m. to sunset.
• Bay Drive Park, 30 Bay Drive in the Hammock, from 10 a.m. to sunset.

There is not currently a Bunnell sandbag station, but the city is hoping to open one soon. Palm Coast has cancelled the City Council workshop scheduled for Tuesday, the town hall with Council member Theresa Pontieri scheduled for Oct. 10, and a groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for Oct. 10 for the new Fire Station 26. The Flagler Auditorium has cancelled a concert by the St. Augustine Orchestra scheduled for Oct. 10.




Water levels are obviously a concern in Palm Coast and, later this week, along the Intracoastal. Canals in Palm Coast have been lowered to create more capacity. (You can monitor canal levels from your phone or computer here.)

“Definitely the amount of rain is a concern we’re actively monitoring,” Palm Coast Fire chief Kyle Berryhill, who, with City Manager Lauren Johnston, the city’s incident commander for the emergency, said shortly after noon. “Our stormwater team is actually running some modeling so we can be aware of what areas of concern we can keep a close eye on.”

Watching water rise during a severe rain event inevitably creates anxiety, Berryhill said, but the city is engineered in such a way that water will accumulate in yards and on roads on its way to the stormwater system. Those accumulations should not worry homeowners. Water intrusion into homes is a different story. But for all the severe rain events that have drenched the city since its creation in 1999, it has never known widespread instances of home flooding. Those instances have been in the low dozens over the years, at most. Then again, the city has not a Hurricane Milton in the past, either. This will be “a very rare but very significant type of rainfall event,” Berryhill said.

Coastal flooding and runoff flooding are secondary concerns, the fire chief said, recalling water-level rises in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, when parts of the Woodlands were especially affected. (See: “In Palm Coast’s Woodlands, Water Is Still Rising and Sandbags Are Being Distributed.”)

Residents are urged to be “incredibly conservative with my water usage because anything that goes down the drain is going to add to that capacity that is overfilled right now due to the rain,” the fire chief said. That means delaying runs of laundry and dishwashing and cutting short lengthier showers.




City officials will be monitoring canal levels and neighborhoods “to make sure residents are safe and do everything we can to provide resources and give them notifications if we think something is going to occur that the stormwater system cannot handle,” Berryhill said. To that end, residents are urged to do their own monitoring of local sources of information–the city, emergency management, local media.

Palm Coast’s website has been refocused on the emergency to make it easier for people to have their questions answered. The city’s customer service ranks will also be increased on Tuesday to handle online and phone inquiries.

Possible Evacuations and Evacuation Readiness

Flagler County issued the following advisory early this afternoon: The county does not have any current evacuation orders. However, all residents in the following neighborhoods are urged to prepare for potential evacuations, with more specific information to be announced over the next 2 days.

• Residents living in Mobile Homes and RV’s Countywide
• Coastal / Island Communities
  • The entire island from the St Johns County Line to the Volusia County Line
  • Marineland through Flagler Beach
• Mainland Communities
  • South of SR-100 (Moody Blvd)
    • Neighborhoods off John Anderson Hwy
    • Neighborhoods off Palm Dr
    • Bulow RV Park & Homes, off Old Kings Rd
    • Polo Club West / Sweetbottom Plantation properties along Lexington Court / Ashland Way and that back up to the Bulow Creek
  • Between SR-100 (Moody Blvd) and Palm Coast Pkwy
    • Neighborhoods off Lambert Ave
    • In Marina Del Palm the properties along the Intracoastal Waterway / basin
    • In Palm Coast Plantation:
      • Properties off South / North Riverwalk Drive
  • North of Palm Coast Pkwy
    • Properties within Princess Place.

Today’s previous update is below.

Milton Will Strike Florida as Major Hurricane Wednesday, Expected Impacts in Flagler; Local State of Emergency Starts at Noon

Monday, 8 a.m.–Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a Category 3 hurricane in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico as it makes its way for landfall Wednesday evening in Florida’s midsection before crossing the state as a hurricane. Models differ significantly as to landfall and direction after that. Forecasters are urging residents not to focus on the track of the storm, but on the cone of probability, with anyone within that cone potentially in Milton’s path.




Flagler County is declaring a state of emergency effective at noon today. It is already under a declared state emergency. County emergency officials are preparing for evacuations targeted to specific areas of the county, should those become necessary, and would have shelters available in that case. Officials will announce later today what areas should be prepared to evacuate–but not actually evacuate–should the storm track continue to include Flagler in its cone.

“Should we order evacuations,  they will be done by a neighborhood,” Flagler County Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord said this morning.

Three days away, the path of the storm has a variability of 100 miles north or south, the National Hurricane Center cautions. “The track guidance is in good agreement that the hurricane will cross the Florida Peninsula, but there remains significant differences in both the location and timing of landfall,” the center states in its Monday morning advisory.

The American model has Milton making landfall between Tampa Bay and the Big Bend area and heading toward the Flagler-St. Johns area. The European model, which historically has been the most accurate, has landfall at or just south of Tampa and crossing the state south of the I-4 corridor. Both of those models predict landfall around 8 p.m. Wednesday. The Canadian model has it making landfall only Thursday morning further south, crossing the peninsula south of Merritt Island.




“This is one of those hurricanes that is not necessarily super easy to model,” Flagler County Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord said this morning. “They know the general idea. They know it’s heading to the Florida peninsula. At one point in time they had the entire peninsula within the potential cone. And again, the cone is just the area where the center of the storm may be. The storm is going to be hundreds of miles wide and have impacts beyond the center of the storm. But even where the center is going to go has fluctuated a little bit. I guess the only thing that they are sure of, it is somewhere in our vicinity, the center of the storm. If you were to follow the center of a line, it does not necessarily put it directly over us, but again, we’re in that cone, and that center can be anywhere in that cone.”

Lord said that it is possible that because of the record-high temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico waters, the storm could strike land as a Category 4, with winds of 130 to 156 miles per hour. The storm’s category at landfall matters because that strength will radiate across land as it makes its way through the Peninsula. “So you’ve got to keep that in mind, because the intensity that it does make landfall does impact what it eventually means for us,” Lord said. “The storm will weaken as it moves across the state, heading kind of in a east, northeast sort of path, then potentially heading in our direction. At a minimum, we expect high end tropical storm force winds. The official forecast, if you’re looking at a certain point in Flagler County today, does not show a high risk of hurricane force winds. But there is a distinct risk that we could have hurricane-force winds.”

This is most likely going to be a Wednesday-Thursday storm for Flagler County, though the storm could yet speed up.

“That’s the key thing: I really don’t want our residents to focus on the line in the middle or the dots in the middle of the cone,” Lord said. “That really is just the middle of the cone. It does not mean the eye is going to travel there. And the eye is much larger than a dot. It can go well north of that dot, I can go well south of that.”

He said today is the day for residents to prepare their homes for sheltering. If they need to put up storm shutters, today is the day, he said.




Daytona State College, Stetson University and the University of Central Florida have cancelled in-person and online classes for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Stetson’s classes close after 1 p.m. Tuesday. Students are required to return home, seek shelter with friends and family, or stay at a local emergency shelter–not on campus. Stetson’s fall break begins Friday, so classes will not resume until Oct. 14. There will be no university operations at UCF starting Tuesday. Current plans are to resume operations Friday.

The University of North Florida and and Flagler County schools have not yet announced hurricane plans. It is likely–if not certain–that, should Flagler remain in the cone of probability, county emergency officials will follow past practices, opening at least one shelter in one of the schools, while schools would close for part of the week. Local governments were issuing preparatory alerts to residents. “If I was a betting person–obviously, Mother Nature can do whatever he or she wants at this point–but if I was a betting person, I would assume the schools are going to close at some point,” Lord said.