Florida residents with ties to Chicago prepare for Hurricane Milton

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — There are several people with ties to the Chicago area that are in central Florida and dealing with Hurricane Milton. WBBM Newsradio was able to speak with people who have evacuated and people who are waiting out the storm.

Rodney Plummer, the brother of WBBM's own Roger Plummer, is a Chicago native who now lives in Port Richey, Florida.

“Since I've lived here 26 years, we've never had one take the angle out of the gulf this way, almost directly coming this way,” Rodney said.

Plummer, his wife and their three grandchildren have stocked up on food and water, and charcoal and say there's some "apprehension" and "anxiousness."

“We're going to stay here. I have a portable generator.”

However, as WBBM was talking with him, things got a bit more intense. Rodney, who was outside in his truck, had to go when sirens went off.

Birgit Tyrell grew up in Lake Zurich, but moved to Tampa Bay, Florida three years ago.

Milton will be her fourth hurricane in that amount of time.

“This is a scarier one. We stayed for Helene. We saw the storm surge, we're on the second floor,” Tyrell said.

“That storm surge surrounded us with water so the storm surge that they could predict, it could potentially get us this time could even reach us up on the second level.”

Tyrell has since evacuated to a hotel north of Tampa through Saturday. Her daughter and her grandson evacuated to Georgia, but it took 15 hours of backed up traffic to get there safely.

Tyrell is not sure when they'll be able to return to their home.

If you would like to donate to help recovery efforts, WBBM has published information about where to donate.

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