Communities in Florida are preparing to get hit head-on by a potential Category 3 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico days after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the state — killing 20 people, leaving thousands without power and paving a trail of wreckage.

The National Hurricane Center predicts that Milton will become “an intense hurricane with multiple life-threatening hazards” and will likely make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast by midweek, as the storm charts its path eastwards as a Category 1 hurricane, according to the NHC’s latest update.

Hurricane Milton’s forecast cone covers almost the entire west coast of Florida as the state prepared for the largest mass evacuation since 2017. Milton could be a major hurricane when it