Another potentially devastating storm barreled toward the Florida coast on Sunday, as the head of the U.S. disaster relief agency lashed out at a "dangerous" misinformation war being waged over the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the new storm, Milton, had intensified into a Category 1 hurricane Sunday with maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour).

Milton was churning in the Gulf of Mexico, southwest of Tampa, with nothing but 800 miles (1,300 miles) of warm ocean between it and the Florida coast — an area still reeling from Helene's catastrophic winds and storm surge.