Dozens of residents and tourists lined up with suitcases and other belongings to catch an evacuation ferry off Holbox island, on the eastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Holbox, popular for its shallow seascapes, may be one of the closest points that Hurricane Milton brushes before moving toward Florida. The low-lying island tends to flood even with a light rain.

Off-and-on resident Marilú Macías was calm and smiling, but was afraid of what Milton could do to the island.

“We are afraid something might happen to us. We’re going someplace safer,” Macías said of herself and her daughters. “We decided it was best to leave the island.”

President Joe Biden has spoken with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss preparations in Florida for the approaching Hurricane Milton and ongoing recovery efforts from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.

The White House confirmed the president’s call with the governor after Vice President Kamala Harris earlier on Monday accused DeSantis of “playing political games” and engaging in “political gamesmanship” over the federal response to Helene. Harris had reached out to the governor last week but said the two never spoke.

DeSantis said he “didn’t know that she had called.”

Biden also spoke on Monday with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and received a detailed briefing from National Weather Service Director Ken Graham on Milton’s expected impact.

Packed into a car with her three young kids, somewhere on State Road 429 and still hours away from the hotel they booked north of Jacksonville, Candice Briggs was trying to stay strong — she knows her children are watching.

Not even two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene sent a foot and a half of water into her family’s home in the Tampa Bay community of Seminole, just across the bridge from Pinellas County’s barrier islands. The family had just settled into their temporary lodgings at the home of an extended family member.

Briggs hadn’t even finished their post-Helene loads of laundry. And now, she, her husband, their kids and their 14-year-old Maltese poodle mix are all evacuating again.

“Most of the tears I’ve cried have been out of exhaustion or gratitude. Just that we’re safe and that we followed our instincts to evacuate,” Briggs said. “Mostly I am grateful. But I am overwhelmed and I am exhausted. And it feels powerless.”

A self-described rule-follower and the mom of a 7-year-old, 5-year-old and 3-year old, Briggs has no qualms about heeding evacuation orders.

Still, Briggs’ mind is on her storm-damaged house, where workers have already torn out feet of sodden drywall, leaving behind exposed beams she fears will be even more vulnerable to the towering wall of water that forecasters say Milton could lash against this flood-prone stretch of the Gulf Coast.

“It is very daunting,” she said.

Even amid the chaos and disruption, she’s trying to preserve a sense of normalcy for her kids, playing pop music and counting cows and horses to keep their spirits up, like it’s any old road trip.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be out of our home,” she said as they once again headed north, fleeing another storm. “And that’s tough because young children don’t understand.”

“They want a countdown,” she said, “and I can’t give you that.”

People should do three key things to make sure they’re prepared for a hurricane: Make a plan, have an emergency kit and stay informed, according to Jaime Hernandez, the emergency management director in Hollywood, Florida.

When it comes to that first step — making an emergency plan — you’ll want to take into account changing forecasts.

“You don’t know what the impacts are going to be,” Hernandez said. “You don’t know what the infrastructure disruptions are going to look like.”

Preparing for a hurricane includes getting supplies in advance, including nonperishable foods and water in case power is lost and supplies are low in the community.

Preparedness also includes ensuring all medical items and medications are ready in case people are unable to leave their homes. In this case, it’s important to consult a doctor about what to have ready in your home.

Hernandez directed people to look at checklists provided by local or state emergency management departments to ensure they are prepared. One such checklist can be found at the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s website.

▶ Read more about how to prepare for a hurricane

Tampa International Airport said it will stop flights at 9 a.m. Tuesday, before Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall. The airport posted on X that it is not a shelter for people or their cars.

St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport said it is in a mandatory evacuation zone and will close after the last flight leaves on Tuesday.

The imminent shutdowns made the few flights out of the storm’s path expensive. By late Monday afternoon, American Airlines’ website showed only a few seats left on Monday night departures from Tampa. Most flights to Atlanta were priced at more than $1,000 for a one-way ticket. Delta Air Lines showed nothing available.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center has issued storm surge warnings for almost the entirety of Florida’s west coast, from Flamingo at the state’s southern tip to the Suwanee River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico about halfway between Tallahassee and Tampa.

The majority of that area was also under a hurricane warning. The hurricane center also issued storm surge watches on the U.S. East Coast including much of Florida up to parts of South Carolina.

Hurricane Milton’s sustained wind speeds increased to 180 mph (290 kph) Monday afternoon, the hurricane center said. The Category 5 storm, located 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the coast of Progreso, Mexico, was moving east at 10 mph (17 kph).

“Milton poses an extremely serious threat to Florida and residents are urged to follow the orders of local officials,” the hurricane center said in their latest storm advisory.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed out while briefing reporters Monday afternoon that the hurricane is already far stronger than what was predicted two days ago.

“This is a ferocious hurricane,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis cautioned that while the storm is expected to weaken by the time it reaches Florida, residents shouldn’t bank on it, and said Milton will cause destruction regardless.

“At the strength it is now, this is a really, really strong storm. The effects of that, not just from the storm surge but from wind damage and debris, will be really, really significant,” DeSantis said. “This is not a storm you want to take a risk on.”

The streets were quiet Monday afternoon in Tampa’s Channel District, home to sleek high rises, coffee shops and the state’s largest seaport — Port Tampa Bay. A Margaritaville-themed cruise ship set sail one day early from the port, revelers leaving behind this vulnerable stretch of Florida’s Gulf Coast to the sounds of Soca music.

Residents walked their dogs while Amazon delivery workers dropped off their packages ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected arrival midweek.

Spence Clark and his 9-year-old chihuahua terrier mix Tiny got some fresh air before the rain was forecast to move in. His fiancé is an EMT and has to stay in town to respond to the storm, so Clark and Tiny plan to hunker down there in their fourth-floor apartment. He said residents seem to be taking this storm more seriously after the damage dealt by Hurricane Helene not even two weeks ago.

“I feel like a lot more people are evacuating as well. Like, I know a lot of my friends have left or they are planning to,” Clark said. “It’s more sensitive now that we have gone through something traumatic.”

The couple has stocked up on snacks and water and parked their cars in an elevated garage ahead of the storm. Clark said he’s not too worried; he joked that it may be harder to keep Tiny fed than he and his fiancé. The dog eats a special kind of food that’s supposed to stay frozen, not shelf-stable kibble.

“I feel like the most thing we’re worried about is his dog food,” Clark said with a laugh. “Gotta prepare for him more than us.”

The National Hurricane Center is predicting storm surge in Tampa Bay and surrounding waters of between 8 and 12 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) above normal tide conditions, and rainfall of between 4 and 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) because of Hurricane Milton.

The entire Gulf Coast of Florida is especially vulnerable to storm surge.

The heightened risk is partially a result of topography. The Gulf of Mexico coastline of Florida is shallow with a gentle, sloping shelf. The higher ocean floor acts as a barrier that retains the storm’s outflow of water, forcing the ocean to surge onto shore. That’s the opposite of Florida’s east coast, where the ocean floor drops suddenly a few miles from the coast.

Read more about the posed threats Tampa Bay is facing

Just feet from the sand at Fort Myers Beach, about 10 workers busily emptied the triple-wide trailer that houses The Goodz, a combined hardware, convenience, fishing supply, ice cream and beach goods store.

Owner Graham Belger said he moved his “Your Island Everything Store” into the trailer after Ian destroyed his permanent building across the street two years ago.

As Don McLean’s song “American Pie” — with its lyrics about driving to the levee but the levee was dry — played softly inside, the workers quickly carried sledge hammers, garden hoes, nails and other merchandise outside into a hauling trailer to be moved away, ignoring the plastic beach toys stuck in a corner. The mandatory evacuation order was looming and the crew needed to finish.

Belger directed traffic while disconnecting his computerized cash register so it too could be removed to safety.

“I’m very worried,” Belger said about Milton’s approach. “We’ll rebuild, but it is going to be bad.”

South Carolina officials estimate $250 million has been spent so far on debris clean up, infrastructure damage and emergency response during Hurricane Helene.

The state has had more than 300 homes destroyed and 5,200 damaged, state Emergency Management Division Director Kim Stenson said Monday.

When asked how much South Carolina might ask Congress for in storm aid, Gov, Henry McMaster said he didn’t know.

“We’re still assessing that. But it’s going to be a big number,” McMaster said.

Power crews continue to make significant progress on outages. Only about 45,000 businesses and home didn’t have electricity Monday afternoon. There were about 1.4 million outages at the peak of the storm.

South Carolina’s largest school district will reopen on Wednesday after seven days out of school because of Hurricane Helene.

There are a lot of misperceptions about FEMA’s role in disaster recovery, what it does — and does not — pay for and what residents in hurricane-hit areas can expect.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is tasked with helping states and communities hit by disasters like Hurricane Helene.

With Helene hitting during the homestretch of an election year, the agency has been criticized by some residents and politicians, like Donald Trump, who have questioned its response and are spreading false information that its funding is going to migrants or foreign wars.

The Biden administration has defended FEMA’s work and says it has the money it needs to help communities right now.

While Biden does say the agency will need more cash in the future, he also called on lawmakers to act quickly to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program.

▶ Read more about the role FEMA plays in states of emergency

Georgia’s top elections official said Monday that he doesn’t expect damage from Hurricane Helene to cause major disruptions in next month’s general election in the state.

After coming ashore in Florida, Helene hit Georgia hard, leaving destruction and power outages in its wake. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference that, for the most part, elections offices in the state’s 159 counties did not sustain serious damage, and no equipment was affected.

“What has been on everyone’s mind is what will happen to elections,” Raffensperger said. “Good news: Absentee ballots are going out this week as scheduled, and early voting will start next Tuesday, on Oct. 15.”

Blake Evans, the elections director for the secretary of state’s office, said county election officials have been dealing with power and internet outages in some parts of the state. But he said emergency management officials have helped prioritize elections offices to make sure they get power restored, and by Monday there were “minimal, if any, power outages to election offices across the state.”

▶ Read more about Georgia elections after Helene.

Early Monday afternoon, about two hours before a mandatory evacuation order took effect, stragglers and workers in Fort Myers Beach were working feverishly to board up and leave before Milton and its’ possible surge arrived.

The beach town on Florida’s Gulf Coast was already a near ghost town, with U-Haul trucks lining the neighborhood streets and pulling away.

This is neighborhood two blocks from the Gulf was ravaged by Hurricane Ian’s surge two years ago.

Older homes that survived Ian stand next to new homes that were rebuilt over the past two years. Half-built homes stand next to vacant lots.

“This whole street used to be filled out with houses,” said Mike Sandell, owner of Pool-Rific Services. His workers were removing the pool pump and heater from a residential pool, and planning going to put it on the home’s second floor so it wouldn’t get washed away by any surge from Hurricane Milton.

“These are all the kinds of things that got washed away two years ago,” Sandell said. “We’re down here trying to help the best we can. We’ve been in business here for 20 years.”

FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell continued to strongly push back against false claims and conspiracy theories about her agency’s response to Hurricane Helene.

In North Carolina, more than 1,600 members of search and rescue teams have been joined by about 1,700 members of the North Carolina National Guard along with 1,000 active-duty military personnel, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

“We have thousands of people on the ground, not just federal, but also our volunteers in the private sector,” Criswell said at a news conference Monday in Asheville, North Carolina.

“And frankly, that type of rhetoric is demoralizing to our staff that have left their families to come here and help the people of North Carolina.”

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell

On Friday, FEMA put out a statement debunking rumors that the agency will only provide $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery.

“The $750 gets you money to help with your medicine or the food you lost in your refrigerator,” Criswell said. “And then we’re going to give additional money for the repairs to your home and the items that were lost. We’re going to help with any rental that they incur or any of the displacement cost if they went and stayed at a hotel. All of that reimbursed. But I can’t give it to them if they don’t apply. And if people are afraid to apply, then it is hurting them.”

It’s the “black swan” worst case scenario that MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel and other hurricane experts have worried about for years.

Part of it is that for some reason – experts say it’s mostly luck with a bit of geography – Tampa hasn’t been smacked with a major hurricane since the deadly 1921 hurricane that had 11 feet (3.3 meters) of storm surge that inundated downtown Tampa, though there wasn’t much to the city at the time, Emanuel said. Since then, a metropolis has grown and it’s full of people who think they’ve lived through big storms when they haven’t, he said.

“It’s a huge population. It’s very exposed, very inexperienced and that’s a losing proposition,” Emanuel, who has studied hurricanes for 40 years, said. “I always thought Tampa would be the city to worry about most.”

He said the whole basin is shaped and low-lying so it’s quite susceptible to flooding.

According to an 11:00 a.m. ET advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Milton is a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph) over the southern Gulf of Mexico.

It was forecast to become a Category 5 hurricane later Monday with winds greater than 157 mph (250 kph) and become a large hurricane over the eastern Gulf.

Its center could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area, and it could remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean.

A hurricane warning was issued for parts of Mexico’s Yucatan state, and much of Florida’s west coast was under hurricane and storm surge watches. Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, which often floods during intense storms, was also under a hurricane watch.

On beaches in the St. Pete Beach area, where Helene’s storm surge flooded homes and businesses, lifeguards removed beach chairs and other items Monday that could become projectiles in hurricane winds.

Schools including the University of Central Florida in Orlando announced they would close in the middle of the week, and Walt Disney World said it was monitoring the hurricane but operating normally for the time being.

All road tolls were suspended in western central Florida. The St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport said it would close after the last flight Tuesday. Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, ordered evacuations for all mobile and manufactured homes by Tuesday night.

All classes and school activities in Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, closed preemptively Monday through Wednesday. Officials in Tampa freed all city garages to residents hoping to protect their cars from flooding, including electric vehicles. The vehicles must be left on the third floor or higher in each garage.

The coastal Mexican state of Yucatan announced it was cancelling classes in most towns and cities along the coast, after forecasters predicted Milton would brush the northern part of the state. The cancellations included its most heavily populated Gulf coast cities, like Progreso; the capital, Merida; and the natural protected area of Celestun, known for its flamingoes.

Milton rapidly strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane Monday on a path toward Florida population centers including Tampa and Orlando, threatening a dangerous storm surge in Tampa Bay and setting the stage for potential mass evacuations less than two weeks after a catastrophic Hurricane Helene swamped the coastline.

The storm is expected to stay at about its current strength for the next couple of days, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. A hurricane warning was issued for parts of Mexico’s Yucatan state, and much of Florida’s west coast was under hurricane and storm surge watches.

Milton had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 kph) over the southern Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane center said.

Its center could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area, and it could remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean. That would largely spare other states ravaged by Helene, which killed at least 230 people on its path from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains.

Forecasters warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge (2.4 to 3.6 meters) in Tampa Bay and said flash and river flooding could result from 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters) of rain in mainland Florida and the Keys, with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) in places.

▶ Get up to speed on Hurricane Milton