Residents in the Tampa area have been packing up and leaving Hillsborough County as powerful Hurricane Milton continues to head their way .
There are 11 Florida counties under a mandatory evacuation, which has led to a 150 increase in traffic as many leave areas anticipated to be impacted by the storm.
On Tuesday morning there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on Interstate 75 as people try to head to safety.
"Helene was a wakeup call," said Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. "This is literally catastrophic. I can say without any dramatization whatsoever if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're gonna die."
The sobering message comes as this shapes up to be one of the largest evacuations of the west coast of Florida.
