Iowa natives experience Hurricane Milton

AMES, Iowa — For Iowa natives living in Florida, dealing with hurricanes becomes part of life. Several former Iowans are dealing with the effects of Milton and reflecting on the way’s that Florida has changed their mindset on hurricanes.

Christine Fleming is an Urbandale native, and Dowling graduate who moved to St. Petersburg a couple of years ago to help manage several nursing homes. She rode out the storm at the nursing home, staying with the residents who were not evacuated out.

“Saint Pete sustained winds of 102 mph and when the hurricane came in this morning, nobody has power, obviously no cell phone service, no Internet, we are on a boil water advisory,” said Fleming. “Our residents, their a hardy bunch of Floridians. They’ve been through a lot of hurricanes. This one was a bit more challenging than other ones in the past, but everyone’s survived everyone got through it and you know life goes on.”

Pat Clark is a retired sports caster who worked for years in Florida and in Iowa. The Colfax native said last night was tough.

“It was bumpy night to be honest with you. I have never heard a howl like I heard for such a long period of time like I did last night,” said Clarke. We had gusts at the height of the storm here in the Orlando area of nearly 80 miles an hour.”

Clarke said a neighbor’s tree fell on his fence, that’s the only damage he incurred. Power was out for a time, but it was restored this morning.

Alice Pareti and husband Guy moved to Florida just recently, as they’d always wanted to have sunshine in the winter. This was their first hurricane season.

“I was living in Iowa, and I saw hurricanes hitting in Florida, I thought why don’t these people evacuate. I thought, of course I would evacuate, and now I am not evacuating,” said Pareti. “What I learned is that there are evacuation zones, so I live in a non-evacuation zone.”

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