The Florida man who said he would weather Hurricane Milton in his boat in Tampa Bay reportedly agreed to be evacuated at the last minute as the deadly storm barrelled towards him.
Joseph Malinowski, who goes by Jay, had pledged to stay with his boat despite warnings from authorities 'if you stay you die,' because his boat engine was broken so he couldn't move it. But on Wednesday, TMZ reported that a Tampa Police spokesperson confirmed that Malinowski has agreed to leave.
It is unclear if he did end up evacuating with conflicting reports suggesting he stayed to weather the storm. Tampa Bay mayor Jane Castor meanwhile claimed police “just saved Lieutenant Dan” at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
He is nicknamed Lieutenant Dan, after the amputee from blockbuster film Forrest Gump who rides out a storm. “I know that God didn’t bring me this far for something to happen to me ,” Jay said in a video of an interview with the Weather Channel. He previously weathered the Hurricane Helene which hit the state at the end of September.
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“The more you go through it, the more you learn,” Jay told the reporter. “I’m confident in my ability to ride it out unless it turns into a Wizard of Oz-type situation, and I wind up in Kansas.” At the end of the interview he told the reporter: "I’ll be here. I’ll see you Friday."
More than 2.6 million homes and businesses are without power as Hurricane Milton spun across central Florida, according to the website PowerOutages.us .
Energy companies serve more than 11.5 million customer accounts statewide, according to the website. The number of people left without electricity continued to grow as the hurricane cut a path eastward across the state after making landfall on the Gulf Coast.
The National Weather Service says the storm’s maximum sustained wind speed was 90 mph (145 kph) at about 1 a.m. Thursday as it passed east of Lakeland, Florida, on its way across the central peninsula.
The weather service uses something called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to estimate potential property damage caused by a hurricane’s sustained wind speed. A Category 1 hurricane is considered to have very dangerous winds that topple shallow-rooted trees, snap tree limbs and damage the exterior of well-constructed frame homes. They can also cause extensive damage to power lines.
Hurricane Milton was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall Wednesday evening. That rating means devastating damage is expected to occur, including roofs torn from well-constructed homes, trees uprooted, and electricity and water systems unavailable for days to weeks.
High wind speeds are not the only dangers caused by hurricanes. Hurricane Milton spawned several devastating tornadoes that wreaked havoc on Florida communities Wednesday afternoon. Heavy rainfall and storm surges also caused dangerous flooding in some coastal areas.
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