Hurricane-battered Florida braces for yet another round of storm surge and damaging winds as potentially catastrophic Hurricane Milton barrels toward the state’s west coast.
Treasure Island sits directly in the storm’s projected path, putting residents like Chuck Fuller on high alert after already facing the wrath of Hurricane Helene.
Fuller, speaking to Fox News early Tuesday, said he plans to evacuate ahead of the storm’s landfall, and he’s urging others to “get out” as well.
“There’s nothing much that we can do… We’ve never seen a storm of this magnitude. They said it’s probably been over 100 years,” he told “Fox & Friends First” co-host Carley Shimkus.
“One of the most terrible reasons [for] the loss of lives is drowning,” he continued, speaking of the storm surge threat. “So just please get out and be safe.”
Residents of the Sunshine State are making their way either inland toward shelters or safer areas in other states, packing interstate highways as they heed warnings to flee.
Fuller’s area, already battered by Hurricane Helene late last month, now grapples with destruction, sewage in the streets and the mounting pressure to do what they can to ward off the damage Milton could cause.
“I have a warning for those that might be seeing this that are still in the barrier islands. We’ve become very complacent because over the years, the storms have come in and [there was] not much damage, maybe a little water. We’ve never had any water in our house but maybe some wind damage. The first year we sandbagged, we moved the cars, nothing happened and then so on and so on, so you become complacent,” he said.
HURRICANE MILTON TO INTENSIFY AND SWELL IN SIZE BEFORE UNLEASHING ON FLORIDA AND MORE TOP HEADLINES
“But I can tell you, heed the advice of the officials and get out because, we have no idea [what’s coming].”
Preparing for Millton has involved boarding up homes, building barricades using sandbags and doing “a lot of praying,” Fuller said, adding that, after Helene, the area can’t afford to “take any chances.”
Milton jumped to a category five on Monday before dialing back to a category four storm hours later. The storm is expected to make landfall late Wednesday.
