People living in the Tampa Bay area are being urged to evacuate as Hurricane Milton makes its way to the West Coast, making it possibly the second major hurricane to impact the area in just over one week.
WPTV’s Joel Lopez is south of Tampa in Ruskin with a firsthand look at how people are preparing for impacts from the hurricane.
Just north of Manatee County, about 45 minutes from where Milton is expected to make landfall based on current models, people are very anxious as the last hurricane left quite a bit of damage. Earlier today, Hillsborough County’s Emergency Management called Hurricane Milton the worst storm they’ve seen in 100 years.
Hurricane
Why Milton could be a historic hurricane for Tampa Bay
Terry Spencer and Haven Daley, Associated Press
“We pretty much accepted, hey, this storm is pretty big, it’s not like any other one so we grabbed as much as we can. We’re going to leave but we don’t know what we’re going to come back to,” said Alejandro Vallejo.
During Hurricane Helene, Vallejo said his neighborhood got about four feet of storm surge, which flooded out some homes. He felt that was a warning of the damage a hurricane can cause, and has decided to board up his house and evacuate his family.