Evacuations urged in Tampa Bay ahead of Hurricane Milton

“We’re talking about storm surge values higher than the ceiling,” “Please, if you’re in the Tampa Bay area, you need to evacuate.”

Florida residents in and near Tampa Bay are strongly urged to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm that could increase its intensity.

In the Atlantic Basin, Milton at 18 hours is the second-fastest storm to go from Category 1 to 5. Wilma in 2005 needed just 12. Milton’s maximum sustained winds measured Monday morning were 160 mph.

Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie in Tallahassee on Monday said the ceilings in the state’s emergency operations center were 10 feet, 8 inches tall. The surge forecast for Tampa Bay from the National Hurricane Center is from 8 to 12 feet.

“We’re talking about storm surge values higher than the ceiling,” Guthrie said. “Please, if you’re in the Tampa Bay area, you need to evacuate. If they have called for your evacuation order, I beg you, I implore you, to evacuate. Drowning deaths due to storm surge are 100% preventable if you leave. We had situations where people died of drowning in Hurricane Ian. Had they just gone across the bridge from Estero Bay, Sanibel Island and so on, just across the bridge to the first available shelter that had capacity, they’d still be alive today.”

According to the National Hurricane Center’s 8 a.m. advisory, the storm is packing winds of 160 mph and is predicted to make landfall on the Gulf Coast of Florida either Wednesday night or Thursday morning. If the storm continues to intensify, it could become a Category 5 storm.

Hurricane Helene landed in the Big Bend region on Sept. 26. While Florida took a wallop, the remnants did the most severe damage in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. At 236, the death toll is fourth most from a hurricane in America since 1950.

Gov. Ron DeSantis discussed Hurricane Helene debris removal from the Tampa Bay area after workers found one of the gates locked and unmanned at the Pinellas County landfall despite the two-term Republican’s executive order that required landfills to remain open 24 hours to accept wreckage.

The Florida Highway Patrol, according to DeSantis, “took matters into their own hands,” fastened some rope to the gate and ripped it open so trucks carrying debris could dump their cargo there. He said crews already hauled 500 truckloads with 9,000 cubic yards of Helene debris from the barrier islands in Pinellas County and 180,000 cubic yards statewide.

“We need as much of this debris picked up as possible, this creates a safety hazard, and it also will increase the damage that Milton could do with flying debris,” DeSantis said. “All local entities should comply with this order and work around the clock to accomplish this mission. We don’t have time for bureaucracy and red tape.”

DeSantis said 800 National Guardsmen have been activated for debris removal in coastal areas affected by Helene, with 5,000 already on duty and 3,000 mobilized prior to Milton’s landfall. He also said the state suspended all tolls in west and central Florida such as the tolled part of Interstate 75 known as Alligator Alley, which connects Naples on the Gulf Coast with Fort Lauderdale on the Atlantic Coast.

DeSantis issued an emergency declaration on Saturday for Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Citrus, Clay, Collier, Columbia, DeSoto, Dixie, Duval, Flagler, Gilchrist, Glades, Hamilton, Hardee, Hendry, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lafayette, Lake, Lee, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Marion, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Nassau, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Johns, St. Lucie Sumter, Suwanee, Taylor, Union and Volusia counties.

Steve Wilson

Regional Editor

Related Topics:#TheCenterSquare Category5Storm GulfOfMexico HurricaneMilton SteveWilson TampaBayEvacuationUrged

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Censorship Industrial Complex

US Condemns EU Censorship Pressure, Defends X

Published on December 7, 2025

Todayville

By Cindy Harper

JD Vance’s warning lands as lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic want to trade liberty for the illusion of digital order.

Stand against censorship and surveillance, join Reclaim The Net.

US Vice President JD Vance criticized the European Union this week after rumors reportedly surfaced that Brussels may seek to punish X for refusing to remove certain online speech.

In a post on X, Vance wrote, “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.”

His remarks reflect growing tension between the United States and the EU over the future of online speech and the expanding role of governments in dictating what can be said on global digital platforms.

Vance was likely referring to rumors that Brussels intends to impose massive penalties under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a censorship framework that requires major platforms to delete what regulators define as “illegal” or “harmful” speech, with violations punishable by fines up to six percent of global annual revenue.

For Vance, this development fits a pattern he’s been warning about since the spring.

In a May 2025 interview, he cautioned that “The kind of social media censorship that we’ve seen in Western Europe, it will and in some ways, it already has, made its way to the United States. That was the story of the Biden administration silencing people on social media.”

He added, “We’re going to be very protective of American interests when it comes to things like social media regulation. We want to promote free speech. We don’t want our European friends telling social media companies that they have to silence Christians or silence conservatives.”

Yet while the Vice President points to Europe as the source of the problem, a similar agenda is also advancing in Washington under the banner of “protecting children online.”

This week’s congressional hearing on that subject opened in the usual way: familiar talking points, bipartisan outrage, and the recurring claim that online censorship is necessary for safety.

The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade convened to promote a bundle of bills collectively branded as the “Kids Online Safety Package.”

The session, titled “Legislative Solutions to Protect Children and Teens Online,” quickly turned into a competition over who could endorse broader surveillance and moderation powers with the most moral conviction.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) opened the hearing by pledging that the bills were “mindful of the Constitution’s protections for free speech,” before conceding that “laws with good intentions have been struck down for violating the First Amendment.”

Despite that admission, lawmakers from both parties pressed ahead with proposals requiring digital ID age verification systems, platform-level content filters, and expanded government authority to police online spaces; all similar to the EU’s DSA censorship law.

Vance has cautioned that these measures, however well-intentioned, mark a deeper ideological divide. “It’s not that we are not friends,” he said earlier this year, “but there’re gonna have some disagreements you didn’t see 10 years ago.”

That divide is now visible on both sides of the Atlantic: a shared willingness among policymakers to restrict speech for perceived social benefit, and a shrinking space for those who argue that freedom itself is the safeguard worth protecting.

If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, join Reclaim The Net.

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Focal Points

The West Needs Bogeymen (Especially Russia)

Published on December 7, 2025

Todayville

By John Leake

The arrest of Ruslan Mahamedrasulov, a Ukrainian detective investigating Zelensky, recalls Vice President Joe Biden forcing the dismissal of a Ukrainian Special Prosecutor in 2015.

After years of lauding the Ukrainian actor, Volodymyr Zelensky as the “Savior of the West,” the U.S. media, including the New York Times, is starting to concede what sensible adults have understood since 2021—namely, that he was installed by the gangster oligarchs who have long run the country for their benefit.

Two days ago, the Times published a report Zelensky’s Government Sabotaged Oversight, Allowing Corruption to Fester, which focuses on allegations Zelensky et al. siphoned off and laundered $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom.

Mr. Zelensky’s administration has blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop the corruption. But it was Mr. Zelensky’s government itself that neutered Energoatom’s supervisory board, The Times found.

It’s not clear why the Times has now decided to shift its reporting from “Zelensky the Messiah” to “Zelensky the Crook.”

To me, one of the most interesting details to emerge from this scandal is the following recently reported in the Kviv Independent:

Kyiv Appeals Court ordered on Dec. 3 the release of Ruslan Mahamedrasulov, a detective with Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), who had been investigating the country’s largest corruption case involving the state-run nuclear power monopoly Energoatom.

Critics argued that the arrest of Mahamedrasulov was a part of a crackdown on Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions, describing it as a political move.

Mahamedrasulov, the head of a NABU detective unit, and his 65-year-old father, Sentyabr, were arrested by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in July, a day before President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law that that took away the independence of NABU and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

After protests in Kyiv and pressure from Western partners, the president signed a new bill on July 31, restoring the independence of these anti-corruption institutions.

Mahamedrasulov and his father were charged with collaborating with Russia for allegedly maintaining contacts with Moscow and serving as an intermediary in cannabis sales to the Russian republic of Dagestan.

The charge of “collaborating with Russia” is an extremely useful accusation to make against anyone in the West who questions the U.S. Military-Industrial-Complex, NATO, and the vast legion of lobbyists, propagandists, thieves, and assorted parasites who make a handsome living by maintaining the fiction that Russia is the great enemy of the West.

The Mahamedrasulov case reminds me of the incident in December 2016 when then Vice President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk that the $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee was contingent on the removal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating allegations of corruption in the Burisma Holdings, of which Hunter Biden was a handsomely paid board member.

Readers who are interested in learning more about this story are invited to read my post of last year, Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian Adventure

Burisma was generally understood to be owned by the Ukrainian oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, but a 2012 study by the Anti-Corruption Action Center presented evidence that Ihor Kolomoisky held a controlling interest. Kolomoisky, with his media holdings, played a decisive role in getting Zelensky elected (see my post, Ukrainian Corruption Scandal Likely Tip of Iceberg).

Lindsey Graham and other U.S. politicians who have made junkets to Kiev understand how this game works. Both political parties have benefitted enormously from maintaining enmity with Russia, even after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. This momentous event provided a unique opportunity for the United States and Europe to bury the hatchet with Russia, but our corrupt ruling class preferred to maintain suspicion and hostility for their own selfish designs.

This is why—against the stern advice and warnings of George Kennan (see A Fateful Error) and other Cold War strategists—the U.S. insisted on expanding NATO all the way to Russia’s borders.

Author’s Note: If you found this post interesting, please become a paid subscriber to our Focal Points newsletter. For just $5 per month, you can support our ceaseless effort to investigate and report what is going on in our world.

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