A jail in Florida is reportedly not evacuating its inmates, despite being in the danger zone for Hurricane Milton.

Hurricane Milton is set to hit parts of the US today (October 9), with Florida expected to be the worst affected.

With this in mind, many parts of the state have been urged to evacuate.

Doubling down on the severity of Hurricane Milton, Tampa mayor Jane Castor warned that upcoming severe weather is ‘literally catastrophic’.

“I can tell you right now, that they may have done that with others but there has never been one like this,” she told CNN on Monday (October 7).

“Helene was a wake up call, this is literally catastrophic. I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die.”

Despite stark warnings like Castor’s as of yesterday, Manatee County Jail has no intention of evacuating its 1,200 inmates.

According to a deputy that works at the jail, the prison is in the Zone A evacuation zone and Manatee County has issued mandatory evacuations for all people in Zones A and B.

Manatee County Public Safety Director Jodie Fiske went on to tell Newsweek: “We do not issue evacuation orders lightly.

“Milton is anticipated to cause more storm surge than Helene. So, if you stayed during Helene and got lucky, I would not press my luck with this particular system.”

Despite Fiske’s words, the deputy said that officials had not planned to evacuate the jail, saying it had not flooded to that extent in the past.