BOSTON — Lots of people took the last flights out of Florida Tuesday by flying into Boston before Hurricane Milton hits.
“If you got a place to go, you get out of town,” said Joseph Rubin, flying in from Fort Myers.
“We live in a flood zone and when we saw the path of the hurricane, we felt that we had to go immediately,” said Ryan Aravint, from St. Pete.
[ The Latest: Hurricane Milton takes aim near Tampa Bay, Florida, once again a Category 5 storm ]
Many of them secured their homes and are hoping for the best while staying with family and friends in the Boston area.
“You put your storm shutters down, you lock up, expect you’re going to have a loss of power, and hope for no flooding and no wind damage,” said Rubin.
“Brought everything inside, brought everything from the first floor to the second floor, we’re only about 11 feet above sea level so a lot of prep,” said Scott MacDonald, from Tampa.
Many Florida residents are not taking any chances after already experiencing the devastation of Hurricane Helene just a couple of weeks ago.
“What we weren’t prepared for was the sea surge and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Margaret Donabed, who’s from Westwood but moved to St. Pete Beach a couple of years ago.
She says they had just finished a two-year remodel of her home when Helene hit.
“You see the line on your walls that the water came up to and that’s where It became calm and it started to recede, ours was at 18 to 20 inches,” said Donabed.
She says her house is now gutted after furniture was floating in the water.
Everyone in her neighborhood had to empty their homes with debris still sitting on the sidewalks today.
Now she’s worried about where all of it will go once Milton hits.
“With fifteen feet of water coming tomorrow and the next day, everything that’s in front of everyone’s house is now floating in the water and it’s going to go smashing through everyone’s homes,” said Donabed.
While many are worried about their homes in Florida, the top priority right now is to evacuate and get out safely, so the people who flew into Boston are just glad they made it there before Milton hits.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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