The Category 5 Hurricane Milton was expected to grow larger on Tuesday as it threatened Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where more than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.

Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane Monday on a path toward Florida population centers, threatening a 12-foot storm surge in Tampa Bay and setting the stage for potential mass evacuations less than two weeks after a catastrophic Hurricane Helene swamped the coastline.

Gov. Ron DeSantis warned on Monday that uncertainty over Milton’s precise path would lead to evacuations over a wide area, especially because the memory of Hurricane Ian was still fresh in Southwest Florida. That storm killed 150 people in 2022, some of whom did not heed calls to evacuate to the mainland from barrier-island communities.