Some Floridians are choosing to hunker down and bear Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards Florida's west coast, threatening catastrophic damage.
Thousands of residents have been warned to evacuate, particularly in Tampa Bay. Mayor Jane Castor has urged residents to prepare and evacuate from zones A and B if necessary . She warned: "There has never been a hurricane like this in Tampa, Helene was a wake up call and this is literally catastrophic. If you choose to stay in those evacuation areas, you're going to die".
But that warning has fallen on deaf ears for residents of a condo complex just off Tampa Bay. Just a day before Hurricane Milton was due to smash in from the Gulf of Mexico Vivienne Marran told CNN she was staying put.
“We can ride it out,” she defiantly said. “The alternatives weren’t too inviting, you know?” Marran is still recovering from Hurricane Helene which left 20 Floridians dead. She says she's hoping her concrete condo can bear the storm.
“I mean, they tell us we’ve only got to go 20 miles” inland, she said. “But because of the last storm, there’s nowhere to go, really. I mean, I guess they’ve got evacuation places, but we’ve been through a lot of these, and it’s a concrete building, and I just feel safer here than elsewhere.”
She and other holdouts said the lack of availability of gas, the cost and lack of safety of hotels and the struggle of getting back to their possibly-swamped properties led to them opting out of evacuating. Theres also the possibility of Milton shifting its landfall target and ultimate path.
“I can’t tell you how many times that people have left here for previous storms and ended up in it,” Marran said. Marran's neighbor Holly Speckhart is also weathering Milton in their five-story building.
She is reasoning that if her area gets hit hard the storm surge would not be high enough to reach her fourth-floor condo where some units have hurricane shutters and windows. “But … if Tampa would get it, I mean, you figure, what are they gonna be, 12 to 15 feet? I mean, that could be two stories,” she said.
“My biggest thing is: I don’t want to leave. I just see what happens in a week. You know, you got mold, you got damage. I figure I can be here.”
As of early Wednesday, Milton was roughly 360 miles southwest of Tampa, with winds of 160 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Forecasters anticipate the storm maintaining its hurricane status as it traverses central Florida on Thursday, heading eastward to the Atlantic.
Tampa Bay, with a population exceeding 3.3 million, is bracing for potential havoc, having dodged direct hits from major hurricanes for over 100 years.
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