Floridians Get Emotional Describing the Toll of Back-to-Back Hurricanes: ‘Preparing to Have Nothing'

Mar. 15, 2025

Floridiansare bracing for their second hurricanein three weeks, and the stress and uncertainty of facing back-to-back storms is taking its toll.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall later on Wednesday, Oct. 9, after rapidly intensifying as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico this week, according to forecasters.

Residents along Florida’s Gulf Coast are still cleaning upfrom Hurricane Helene— which hit the Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm in late September — and streets are still lined with debris.

But now, as locals on the western coast around the Tampa Bay area are being urged to evacuate or prepare to hunker down, Floridians say they are bearing a heavy load.

“It’s scary,” Angelina Stow toldUSA Todayat a gas station in Fort Valley, Ga. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. We’re kind of blind right now.”

ndows are covered with plywood in the Ybor City neighborhood as Hurricane Milton approaches on October 08, 2024 in Tampa, Florida.Spencer Platt/Getty

Spencer Platt/Getty

Renae Davis, of St. Petersburg, told news stationWTOPthat she got emotional when she learned a second hurricane was on its way so soon.

“When the storm was projected to hit us dead on, I had a couple of good crying sessions just preparing to have nothing when we came back,” she said.

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Tampa Mayor Jane Castortold CNNon Monday, Oct. 7, “If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die."

“This is something that I have never seen in my life,” Castor said at the time. “And I can tell you that anyone who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area has never seen anything like this before. People need to get out.”

Juan Hernandez helps his father, Jorge Hernandez, place plywood over the windows of their home before Hurricane Milton’s arrival on October 08, 2024 in Estero, Florida.Joe Raedle/Getty

Joe Raedle/Getty

Many residents are heeding the warning. Jake Keglor, of Seminole, Fla., toldCNNthat he typically stays put for hurricanes but that Helene drastically changed his perspective.

“I had never seen the stuff that we saw,” Keglor said.

Jose Lopez toldABC affiliate WPLGthat this is his first time evacuating for a storm and “we’ve been here since 2007,” he said.

Now, she is being asked to evacuate again.

It’s a difficult time for Menegias. “It’s a mobile home, but I paid a lot of money,” she said. “I lost everything. I don’t know what to do.”

A sign indicates that an evacuation order is in effect for the beach area before Hurricane Milton’s arrival on October 08, 2024, in Fort Myers, Florida.Joe Raedle/Getty

Walter Smutz, a military veteran who is disabled, told NBC News that he is homeless after Helene, which flooded his mobile home as well. He and his wife have been sleeping in their vehicles ever since, he said.

“Right now, I’m homeless and scared to death,” said Smutz. “I’m worried about getting on my feet. I just want a home. I don’t care what kind of home.”

source: people.com