Millions of Florida residents have fled the US state as Hurricane Milton approaches, with officials there warning that those who stayed would “die” and that single-story homes would turn into “a coffin”.

“We are a few hours away from an epic catastrophe,” Tampa Congresswoman Kathy Castor told CNN. The Tampa metropolitan area, home to more than 3 million people, is directly in the hurricane’s path, as is a vast swath of Florida’s western coast.

Forecasters have described the hurricane, which is expected to make landfall either Wednesday night or the early hours of Thursday, in apocalyptic terms, warning it would be the “storm of the century”. The words emphasised the power of Milton in a state that is no stranger to hurricanes, having already been battered by a series of devastating storms in recent years.

The National Hurricane Center said Milton would cause an “extremely life-threatening situation” and is expected to bring damaging winds and torrential rainfall that will extend inland and outside the forecast cone. It weakened slightly from a Category 5 storm to a Category 4 as it approached the west coast of Florida, but is still extremely powerful.

“Winds will begin to increase along the west coast of Florida by this afternoon,” the NHC said. “Preparations, including evacuation if told to do so, should be rushed.”

“I am nervous. This is something we just went through with the other storm – ground saturated, still recovering from that,” Sarasota resident Randy Prior, who owns a pool business, told AFP.

Prior, 36, says he plans to ride out the storm at home, after recently toughing out Hurricane Helene, which flooded the same western parts of Florida before wreaking havoc across remote areas of North Carolina and further inland.

“I own a business, so once the storm stops, I’ve got to be here, help clean up, get everything back to normal. But this one’s a big one for sure.”

Tampa resident Luis Santiago said he would “close up everything” and leave.

Airlines added flights out of Tampa, Orlando, Fort Myers and Sarasota, as highways clogged up with escaping traffic and petrol station pumps ran dry.

The hurricane comes just two weeks after an earlier one, Hurricane Helene, hit on September 26, causing widespread damage across the southeastern US, including in Florida, and killing more than 200 people – mainly in North Carolina and Georgia.