TAMPA, Fla. — Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida Wednesday night with sustained winds of 120 miles per hour and even stronger gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Milton is expected to track across Central Florida with hurricane strength through Thursday morning. Despite the chaos, KING 5 was able to hear from those in the path of the storm, including people originally from Washington.
The second home for one Seattle couple in Tarpon Springs, near Tampa, suffered major flooding damage in Hurricane Helene, with two and a half feet of water inside of it.
Thomas Chabarum said, "It's been a real trying time... we went down there last week and assessed the damage and spent four very long days cleaning it out and removing furniture and bedding and everything else that had been destroyed, waterlogged."
Chabarum primarily lives in Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood with his husband, John Shafchuk.
While assessing the damage from Helene, they started hearing about the dangers Milton would bring. They decided to pack a rental car with as many of their belongings as they could salvage and drive clear across the country back to Washington.
"Now we're already in South Dakota," said Shafchuk. "We're tired and we're stressed out.”
On the east coast of Florida in St. Augustine, Ben Hunt is working to make sure his home doesn't also get flooded.
"I got a bunch of sandbags, lined them up at the doors as a precaution," said Hunt.
Hunt grew up in a state known for its rain: Washington. Hunt is originally from Vancouver, but Milton and Helene are unlike any weather he's experienced in the Pacific Northwest.
"I was just saying not too long ago that I was starting to miss the rain, and I think I'm going to retract that statement because this is not very fun," said Hunt.
Meanwhile, Claudia Pardilla and her fiancé Bryan Ruiz are hunkered down in their Parrish home, right outside of Tampa. They told KING 5 they got a mobile alert Wednesday evening saying 911 emergency services would be suspended due to weather.
“They said nobody’s going to answer the call," said Ruiz.
He added, "It's eerie. Starting to hear the whistling outside, and the tree branches and everything howling in the wind.”
Ruiz is on the mind of a meteorologist here in Washington: KING 5's Ashley Ruiz. Ruiz, who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, said she was feeling "a little anxious" about her brother being in Florida during Milton.
"It's hard to balance work and, and talking to my brother, and trying to focus, just because you have that in the back of your mind, and you're covering it," said Ruiz.
As she works to track Milton from Washington, she understands more than most that every storm is unique. Helene also led to severe flooding in many Florida communities.
The flooding from Helene caused a home to go up in flames after a fire was ignited. A woman and two young kids were home at the time.
"His house was in about five and a half feet of water, so the fire department couldn't get there. The water was too deep for the fire trucks," said Bryan Stern, founder of Grey Bull Rescue. "We have boats. We have these inflatable rescue boats. So we were able to walk the boats in. They had hunkered down at their neighbor's house right next door, but that house was at risk."
Stern continued, "We got them out. We, we walked them through the water... We walked out of there with 10 adults, two babies, two dogs."
Volunteers with Grey Bull Rescue, like Stern, rely on donations from the public to purchase life-saving equipment like boats, chainsaws, helicopters, and more.
"We need public support. The other thing people can do is follow us on Facebook and Instagram and social media. This is super important. When you call 911, 911 does not dispatch us. So people [in need] don't know, right? People don't know how to find us very often," said Stern.
He added, "Social media is our number one tool for people to find us in the first place."
People in Milton's path can request help from Grey Bull Rescue's website.
"That triggers a mechanism for my case management team to engage with them," said Stern.
Heading into Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center expects Milton to continue doling out life-threatening storm surges, flooding, rainfall and destructive winds both near and far from where it hit landfall.