The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are playing it safe and heading to New Orleans early in order to avoid impending tropical storm Hurricane Milton, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported on Monday.
The Buccaneers are set to take on the Saints on Sunday but will head to the city on Tuesday and stay in hotels there rather than make the trip on Saturday ahead of the game.
Hurricane Milton is an impending tropical storm building in the Gulf of Mexico. According to local authorities, it has been officially classified as a hurricane and is heading toward Florida's west coast. It's expected to arrive near Tampa on Wednesday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
The National Hurricane Center designated Milton as a Category 4 storm on Monday morning, with winds increasing to 240 km/h.
An evacuation order is being planned right now for the state. Florida Division of Emergency Management director Kevin Guthrie called it the largest evacuation since 2017 at a press conference with Governor Ron DeSantis.
On Sunday, Gov. DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 51 of Florida's 67 counties.
Florida, along with other states along the East Coast, has already been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the southernmost state over a week ago.
Both the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have been affected by the impending storm, with the former cancelling its final pre-season game against the Nashville Predators and the latter cancelling its ring ceremony.
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