MIAMI — Hurricane Milton remained an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane Wednesday morning with less than a day left before it slams into Florida’s Gulf Coast with roof-ripping winds and potentially lethal walls of water as high as 15 feet.

The storm, with sustained winds still clocking in at 145 mph, finally made the fateful turn to the northeast that will steer it toward what promises to be a catastrophic strike sometime in the darkness of late Wednesday night or early Thursday — likely as a Category 3.

At 11 a.m. Wednesday, the forecast track from the National Hurricane Center was slightly south of the mouth of Tampa Bay and heavily populated communities that are extremely vulnerable to storm surge. If it remains on that path over the next 15 to 18 hours, Sarasota and coastal cities to the south, including Fort Myers Beach, which is still rebuilding from Category 4 Hurricane Ian two years again, would see the worst of the surge.

Overnight, storm surge predictions for those areas rose to 10 to 15 feet for Sarasota and Fort Myers and 8 to 12 feet for the Naples area, while predictions for Tampa Bay dropped from a peak of 15 feet to 12 feet.

But a wobble back north to Tampa was still possible and forecasters have repeatedly warned that there will be widespread, potentially lethal coastal flooding along much of the coast — including in the Tampa Bay region — no matter where Milton comes in.

“We’re bracing for that, but we’re doing everything we can to mitigate the damage beforehand and we’ll do everything we can to get people back on their feet afterward,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a state press conference Wednesday morning.

Federal officials also said they’re in place and ready for Milton to strike. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said she plans to work side-by-side with DeSantis. A national team is directly embedded in the city of Tampa, “so we can have a seamless flow of communication as they are experiencing the impacts, and we can help provide the resources they need for those initial life-saving efforts,” Criswell said during a Wednesday morning news briefing.

As Milton approached the state, tornadoes sprung up across South Florida, including one that crossed directly over I-75 in western Broward Wednesday morning. More were expected.

Wind shear expected

The storm was about 190 miles southwest of Tampa Wednesday morning and the first gusts of tropical storm winds had begun sweeping the Gulf Coast. By 11 a.m., Milton had picked up the pace to 17 mph as it rushed toward Florida.

Milton was expected to begin weakening later in the day as it slurps in dry air and encounters wind shear. But the hurricane has stubbornly maintained intensity in the hot Gulf of Mexico. It is still forecast to make landfall as a major Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds and maintain its hurricane strength as it crosses the state Thursday.

Wherever Milton makes landfall, the areas nearest to the center or to the south are expected to see the highest storm surge. Areas to the north could see more rain and a higher chance of tornadoes.

But as Floridians anxiously watch every new model run or hurricane hunter update to predict where, exactly, Milton’s eye could come ashore, the hurricane center insisted that it will be tough to nail until just before landfall.

“We would like to emphasize that Milton’s exact landfall location is not possible to predict even at this time, particularly if the hurricane wobbles during the day and into this evening. Even at 12-24 hours, NHC’s track forecasts can be off by an average of 20-30 nautical miles,” forecasters warned in the 11 a.m. update.

South Florida remained under a tropical storm watch, but Miami-Dade and Broward counties will likely see just squally weather, with gusts up to 45 mph. There could be some fast-moving storms but the National Weather Service lifted a flash flood warning early Wednesday. The Florida Keys could see coastal flooding from storm surge, as well as gusts up to 65 mph.

Milton’s path and power — it literally looked like a perfect buzzsaw blade on satellite image early Wednesday — promised to leave a swath of damage across much of the central peninsula. There will certainly be widespread power outages, wiped-out coastal homes, and ripped-off roofs. The damage from coast to coast could be historic in a state with a long, expensive history of hurricane strikes. There’s some hope that the potential death toll won’t be.

Over the last few days, evacuees have streamed out of coastal communities from Naples to Cedar Key. Many were still cleaning up from the passage of Hurricane Helene, which flooded thousands of homes. The Tampa Bay region experienced its worst coastal flooding in a century, though Helene’s core remained as much as a hundred miles offshore.

The entire Florida Gulf Coast bears recent hurricane scars. Just two years ago, Cat 4 Hurricane Ian destroyed Fort Myers Beach, drowning the city. That storm wound up the deadliest in Florida in nearly a century, killing 149 people, including 72 in Lee County, many who had failed to evacuate.

By Wednesday morning, Milton’s wind field already reached 175 miles from the center. Hurricane-force winds stretched up to 35 miles from the center. The now-broader storm is expected to bring 130 mph sustained winds and higher gusts, plus record-setting storm surge, to much of Florida. Milton could also bring more than a foot of rain to areas north of its eye, up to 18 inches in some spots.

DeSantis, in the morning press conference, acknowledged that despite fervent calls for evacuation in flood prone areas, some people have decided to stay. And while officials have pledged to try to rescue everyone they can when the waters start to rise, at a certain point they will be physically unable to reach people.

“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s a way around it when you have storm surge that’s over 10 feet,” he said. “Why would you want to risk it at this point?”

Many coastal Floridians, especially those in the path of Hurricane Helene, aren’t willing to take that chance.

When Isabel and Javier Dubrocq saw on the news Wednesday morning that Milton was expected to make landfall as a Category 4, and forecasts kept nudging the center of storm’s track south, they made the call. They started to move furniture inside their Sarasota home, about half a mile from the Gulf.

“We’re leaving in a couple of hours,” said Isabel Dubrocq, a local dance teacher. They’re heading to her brother’s home five miles inland to ride out the storm with Javier’s 85-year-old mother and their dog Taco Bella, Taquito for short.

“Two weeks ago, Helene came and this city was floating,” said Javier, as he and his wife boarded up a window. “This street didn’t flood though.”

Still, they won’t be risking it as Milton tears through Florida.

“That last thing I’m thinking about is what this house will look like,” said Javier, an artist. “I’m thinking about our safety.”

Over his shoulder, a polystyrene slab and lime green seat cushions were jammed between a glass window and several wooden boards screwed into the frame.

He held a power drill in his right hand as Isabel hoisted an umbrella over his head. As he stepped toward another window, his T-shirt commemorating an exhibit by artist M.C Escher came into clear view — a close-up image of an eye.

Ready for Milton

Most of the state, far beyond the expected landfall area, was hunkering down for Milton’s arrival. Major airports in Tampa and Orlando prepared to shut down. Schools announced pending closures across much of the state, including in South Florida. Millions of residents across the state were under hurricane warnings or watches.

As rain fell Tuesday on Palm Bay, a Brevard County city about 4 miles west of Melbourne Beach, business owners were busy making preparations for Milton. Nobody knew what the storm would do as it traversed Florida, but forecasters expected it will still be a hurricane when it gets here.

Tattoo shop owner Dave Parker and his tattoo artist Jesse Cuen were cutting plywood and boarding up Parker’s High Class Ink Studio on Babcock Street Parker. Parker said Palm Bay has faced hurricanes before, but this is the first time he’s decided to board up his shop. He also buttoned up his studio in Rockledge, about 30 miles inland and closer to Milton’s projected path.

“I don’t want to take a chance with these guys’ livelihood or mine,” Parker said as he sawed a portion of plywood.

Across the Melbourne Causeway, at the Copperhead Tavern — a small outdoor bar and grill on 5th Avenue and A1A — business was steady Tuesday evening with people ordering drinks, burgers, fish and chips and mahi tacos.

Manager and bartender Alexis Bragg was serving customers as other staff pulled in chairs from the patio and covered computers with plastic trash bags.

“Everybody I’ve been talking to today, no one is leaving,” Bragg said. “They’re just hunkering down.”

The 27-year-old said she’d be heading to her mother’s house in Palm Bay because she lives in a first-floor apartment near the beach that floods on a regular basis just on a normal rainy day.

“If it was on the second level, I would stay. But we lose power super easy at my apartment, and my mom has a generator,” Bragg said. “We’ll just party there. It’s fine.”

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