One couple from Nova Scotia is anxiously watching from afar as the powerful Hurricane Milton gets ready to pummel Florida and the community they live in.
Kathy and Gary MacDonald from Halifax are two of the tens of thousands of Canadians who fly south every year to spend the winter in a warmer climate.
Kathy tells our newsroom for the past decade they have lived in Pinellas County, near Tampa Bay, for about six months of the year.
Now, she says, with Milton about to barrel through, their community has been ordered to evacuate- but some of their friends are staying put and it’s heartbreaking.
“There are still a number of residents who refused to leave, including one of my very close neighbours who happens to be nearly 90 years old and, in a wheelchair, and just refused to go. She just wanted to stay in her home. So, it’s pretty distressing and incredibly tough to watch and hear these people that are actually still staying in the community that don’t want to leave their home.”
Some, Kathy adds, simply have no place to go.
“Whether it’s financial or they just want to stay in their own place. They’ve lived in Florida a long time. They’ve been through hurricanes. They think it won’t happen to them. But as we learned from the last one, Helene, that it can be quite serious. This one actually, is very serious. And some people just think that everything is going to be ok.”
Those who go…where are they headed?
When people decide to leave, Kathy says, they bring in any debris, lock their homes, board their windows, take their personal belongings and head out in any direction they can go.
Some are headed north or more inland, to avoid the storm surge.
Footage on social media over the last couple of days have showed extremely long line ups, with vehicles bumper to bumper.
What about their own property
Past hurricanes like Irma, Ian and Helene, Kathy says, have caused only some damage to their property like fallen trees.
She says, so far, they have been lucky.
“So, until late tomorrow, you know, Friday, we won’t really know the outcome of what we may have personally sustained in this hurricane.”
However, she says, they are more concerned about their friends.
“The community that we are in there are lot of Canadians. So, you know, we feel very welcome there. Our American friends are amazing as well. So, we hope to go back.”
Kathy says she is grateful to be in Halifax right now, and events like these make her wonder about “wintering” in Florida in the future.
Milton is currently a Category 5 but is expected to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday as a Category 3.
This comes just less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene that left at least 225 people dead.
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