Matthew Heller, a lifelong Floridian, decided to remain in Tampa as authorities warn residents of evacuation zones to leave the area.
Heller, a business owner, told Fox News Digital that he didn’t know which direction the storm would take and that some of his neighbors had already been evacuated.
“Some of my neighbors have younger children. For me, it’s just me. My house is my livelihood, so I’m going to hunker down. But I saw the others leave. Sometimes,” he said.
Florida coast warns others to ‘evacuate’ as Hurricane Milton approaches: ‘We have no idea’ what will happen
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued a dire warning this week to those who don’t leave their shelters: “If you choose to stay in your shelters, you’re going to die.” he told CNN on Monday.
Just a few weeks ago, Heller’s home in Tampa, Florida, was flooded by more than five feet of water during Hurricane Helen. (Matthew Heller)
“If at any time I feel like I’m in danger, I’m wearing a life jacket and I want to swim away. Over the last few days, we’ve moved all our cars to higher, higher, higher ground.” – “It’s a dry spot, so you can just swim to one of them and hang tight until the water recedes,” Heller said.
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Heller said there has been “massive chaos” with residents looking for gas.
Tampa resident Matthew Heller told Fox News Digital that he sees trash everywhere as residents have been instructed to leave Hurricane Helen damage on the streets for pickup. The city is currently preparing for Hurricane Milton. (Matthew Heller)
“I wanted to fill up the tank. The tank was about half full and I wanted to refill it… It took 10 stations. There was plastic on top of all the pumps and there was no empty tank. “I found a station with… people not in line,” he said, “and people were standing in line, screaming and honking their horns, and the storm wasn’t even there yet, and it was very scary.” Ta.
Heller was battling Hurricane Helen, which hit the same area just a few weeks ago and flooded her entire home, with water reaching 5 1/2 feet high.
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Matthew Heller, a Florida resident, plans to ride out Hurricane Milton in his Tampa home. (Matthew Heller)
“Trash has been lined up on our streets for over 11 days. There’s so much debris from the last storm that I don’t see any effort to clean it up. So I don’t know, (we’re) being kind. “Here we do it ourselves,” Heller said.
Heller went viral on TikTok after kayaking around her home, which was flooded during Hurricane Helen.
“We’ve been recovering for the past week by removing drywall, but the whole downstairs was destroyed. Now it’s all sitting on the curb. The city of Tampa told us to leave it unbagged. So I have all this loose construction debris.” My big concern is that the debris could clog any kind of drainage system and cause further problems or become missiles or projectiles and other things. or causing damage to property,” Heller said.
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Heller said his family fears for his safety.
