MOSCOW: Tropical storm Milton, threatening to hit the US state of Florida, has strengthened to a hurricane, reported Sputnik, quoting the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC).
The day before, the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reported that a state of emergency had been declared in 35 counties of the state in connection with the approaching tropical storm Milton.
According to meteorologists, Milton is currently packing maximum sustained winds of about 130 kilometres per hour and is moving east at about nine kilometres per hour.
US President Joe Biden said he had been briefed on Milton and urged Florida residents to listen to local authorities. Commenting on the situation with Hurricane Helene, the head of state said he had ordered an additional 500 troops to be sent to North Carolina to assist in disaster response and recovery efforts.
Earlier, CNN reported that the death toll from Hurricane Helene, which hit the southeastern United States in September, had risen to at least 227.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not have enough resources to deal with the consequences of the storm for the remainder of the hurricane season.
A tropical storm is given a name when the speed of its accompanying winds reaches 62 kilometres per hour.
For a hurricane to be assigned a category one on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which assesses the potential damage from the elements, its wind speed must exceed 120 kilometres per hour.
If the wind speed exceeds 150 kilometres per hour, the hurricane category will be raised to the second, at 180 to the third, at 210 to the fourth.
The fifth, most dangerous category is assigned to hurricanes with a wind speed of more than 250 kilometres per hour. – BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
