Here I Sit Waiting For Milton To Visit!
I evacuated to my Grandson’s home who lives outside of Orlando. He & wife live in a safer home. Villa like sandwiched between 2 other units. Less than 24 hours away is a Cat 5 storm which will give us strong life threatening hurricane force winds (possibly a Cat 2) across all of Central Florida, from coast to coast. As long as I’ve lived in Central Florida I’ve never had to evacuate. Donna (1960) gave us over 100 mph gusts, Charlie (2004) 74 mph gusts, Orlando north of us got 100 mph gusts, but none were from storm surge.
I was fortunate as I didn’t have to evacuate from Tampa although I do live 55 miles due east off I-4. I drove a secondary road going north. The people who were evacuating from the west coast got caught up in a nightmare! Sitting for hours, vehicles had to be pushed off the roads (out of gas!), walking their dogs, etc. The road shoulders were opened for traffic which gave 5 lanes instead of 3, only to find no rooms. But, for the life of me I cannot understand why people don’t evacuate when instructed to do so because of storm surge. Emergency Management in Tampa succinctly said “If you don’t evacuate…YOU WILL DIE.” And, die they will. Florida had 11 deaths from Helene
(Sept. 26, 2024) less than 2 weeks ago. 9 died from mandatory evacuated areas. This is fresh, current news, yet there are some, stupid is as stupid does, who say they won’t evacuate from this deadly powerful storm, Milton. They were told to write their names & Social Security numbers on themselves in order to be identified!
“Milton's wind field is expected to grow considerably in size while it moves across Florida.
This is a very serious situation and residents in Florida should closely follow orders from their local
emergency management officials. Evacuations and other preparations should be rushed to completion. Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.”
It is 12 noon and starting to get darker outside. Milton is on his way…