Former Hawaii residents among those hunkering down in Florida

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Millions are evacuating their homes in Florida, while others are hunkering down and praying for the best, including former Hawaii residents.

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Bob and Michelle Lutjen live in St. Lucie County on the east side of Florida. They weren’t expecting to see significant impacts from Hurricane Milton.

“I went through most of the day today thinking, ‘Oh, this is great, it’s going to pass us by’ and then at 5:00 they released the latest update and now we’re getting ready to put shutters up on the house,” said Michelle Lutjen.

That’s a lot different from the last time they were getting ready for a hurricane of this magnitude in 1991 when Makiki residents were getting ready for Hurricane Iniki.

“Well, that was kind of really stupid that we were doing that because a 150-mile-an-hour wind isn’t going to stop any articles from crashing through glass with tape on it,” said Bob Lutjen.

The Lutjens put gas in their cars, picked up generators and a supply of food and water. They’ve been in Florida for about 20 years now. They said one thing they can’t get used to — the flat land.

“The whole state is a flood zone,” said Bob Lutjen. “I mean, we’re flat and we’re at sea level, basically. So, you know, any serious rain, our street will flood and we’ll watch it coming closer and closer to our door and it gets a little intense.”

But one thing they did find was the aloha spirit.

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“We have such great neighborhoods here and people know their neighbors and we know our neighbors well, and we all help each other,” said Michelle Lutjen.

“We’ve gone through these before and we come out of it alive,” said Bob Lutjen. “We’re, you know, we prepare and we pray. That’s all we can do.”

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