published Oct 7, 2018, 12:01:56 PM, by Meghan Genovese and Charles Stein
(Bloomberg) —

Florida Governor Rick Scott plans to issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency for counties in the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend as the state continues to monitor and prepare for a probable hurricane to make landfall by midweek.

According to the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Tropical Depression 14 has strengthened into a Tropical Storm Michael and is expected to become a hurricane before reaching the western Florida Panhandle early on Oct. 10.

The storm is currently about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Cozumel, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour.

The governor will be briefed by federal, state and local officials at 5 p.m. Sunday at the State Emergency Operations Center, according to a statement from his office.

It’s common to see big “monsoon-like” systems develop in Central America at this time of year, said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground. So far the Atlantic has produced 12 named storms this season. They include Florence — the most powerful one so far this year — which caused devastating flooding across North Carolina and South Carolina.

WeatherTiger forecaster Ryan Truchelut told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper that “we are alarmed, to put it mildly,” by the intensity of the storm. Skip Foster, another weather watcher, wrote in the newspaper that because the storm developed so quickly, “the models are having a hard time settling on a track, which means a large area of the Gulf Coast is under the gun.”

NWS @NWS Here is the latest forecast track and key messages with Tropical Depression Fourteen, via @NHC_Atlantic. TD Fourteen has the chance to strengthen today over the northwest Caribbean and may become a Tropical Storm. All northern Gulf Coast residents should monitor this system.#TD14——-Sent via Twitter Web Client.

While the Panhandle region is more sparsely populated than many parts of Florida, it is home to a number of medium-sized metropolitan areas including Pensacola, the state capital of Tallahassee, Fort Walton Beach, and Panama City. In 2010 the U.S. Census put the population of the entire Panhandle at 1.4 million.

The region is home to a number of military bases including Pensacola Naval Air Station and Eglin Air Force Base.

The area has suffered storm damage in the past, from Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Hurricane Dennis in 2005. In 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil spill hit Pensacola Beach, hurt the fishing and tourism industries.

To contact the reporters on this story: Meghan Genovese in Los Angeles at mgenovese@bloomberg.net ;Charles Stein in Boston at cstein4@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lauren Berry at lberry4@bloomberg.net Kevin Miller, Ros Krasny
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