Channel 11’s Alyssa Raymond spoke with a man who was in Pittsburgh when Hurricane Helene hit. But shortly after he returned to Florida, where he now lives, word of a much stronger hurricane began to spread.
“It was just like Helene,” Michael O’Toole said. “Then Helene passed and then Milton went from a Gulf storm to a Category 5 hurricane overnight.”
O’Toole just moved to Tampa from Pittsburgh two months ago.
“It’s a very different way of responding to the weather here,” O’Toole says. “Within 24 hours of knowing how big the storm was, the gas station lines were half a mile to a mile long.”
O’Toole and his friends decided to evacuate to Boynton Beach. He shared a video he shot 12 hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall on the other side of the state.
“You could see the wind,” O’Toole said. “The leaves of the palm trees were waving sideways. But beyond that, the clouds were moving quickly. The wind was fast. And the water was moving faster than normal, but other than that it just felt like a normal storm here, like you wouldn’t know it was a hurricane.
Meanwhile, it looked very different from the Ring doorbell outside his Tampa home.
“You could see the trees were sideways,” O’Toole said. “The bushes were sideways and only drops of water fell from the sky.”
Then their glimpse of Tampa went dark. They were one of more than three million without power. Crews from all over the world, including Southwestern PA, rushed down to help. Red Cross volunteers were already stationed there because of Hurricane Helene.
“We knew we were entering an era of sustained response,” said Nicole Roschella, communications director for the American Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania. “These back-to-back disasters where we have to go there and help people at the same time.”
The Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania currently has more than 50 volunteers serving the 83,000 people who have spent the night in shelters.
“We will not abandon the people affected by Hurricane Helene,” Roschella said. “We are still here, and we will be there for weeks and months to come while helping the people affected by Milton.”
Many, including O’Toole, were grateful it wasn’t worse.
“You can’t possibly know that,” O’Toole said. “We thought Tampa was going to be razed and it looks like other than the flooding and a few fallen trees, Tampa is generally fine.”
Download the FREE WPXI News App for the latest news alerts.
Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook And Tweet. | Check out WPXI NOW
TRENDING NOW:
Dad used toddler as ‘human shield’ during SWAT situation in Ambridge, two local YouTubers are facing charges over a prank on an elderly woman, according to court documents. Look up: Northern Lights could be visible in Pittsburgh on Thursday VIDEO: Real estate agent weighs 46% property tax hike DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news
