'The waiting is horrific': Maritimers with Florida ties brace for Hurricane Milton

A Lee County Sheriff's officer patrols the streets of Cape Coral, Fla., as heavy rain falls ahead of Hurricane Milton, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Source: AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

It has been seven years since Saint John, N.B., couple Paul and Stacey Vautour moved to the Tampa area in Florida.

Dealing with massive storms is nothing new for the couple as a few hurricanes and tropical storms batter the Sunshine State every year, but when it comes to Hurricane Milton, storm experts are expecting historic amounts of damage

“The waiting is horrific,” says Stacey Vautour. “It's just, you know, what's going to happen? Right now, it's a (category four hurricane), they're talking about totally wiping out everything that I know. My home, where I work out at the gym, all my friends, my community. I've never encountered something like this before.”

The couple left their Tampa home on Monday and have settled in Atlanta, GA, ahead of the storm. They brought the clothes on their back and a few things in a suitcase.

The couple says timing was everything when it came to evacuating the state.

“Right now it takes five-to-seven hours to drive 100 miles,” says Paul Vautour. “(Hurricane) Helene proved something that was pretty unbelievable that we haven't seen in our lifetime with that storm surge, and this is now going to be double that. So 75 per cent of the people don't leave during a hurricane, and now I think maybe 10 per cent didn't leave. The interstates are absolutely gridlocked for hundreds of miles.”

The couple is monitoring their home through security cameras, and will continue to do so until power is lost.

They plan to make their way back home first thing Thursday morning once Milton passes through the state to assist with cleanup efforts. With so much debris left on the streets following Hurricane Helene – which hit Florida two weeks ago – they aren’t sure what they will be returning home to.

“Absolute devastation,” says Paul Vautour. “I don't imagine anything is going to look anything like it used to.”

“I've got my kids here and my husband and we're safe,” says Stacey. “That's a blessing in itself and we'll just have to deal with whatever comes next. I can't think of the what-ifs, I just know that we're here and we're safe, and then we'll just deal with what happens next.”

Maritimers who are part-time residents in Florida also have a great deal of stress as the storm prepares to make landfall.

Paul LeBlanc lives in Meteghan, N.S., during the summer, but resides about five miles north of Sarasota in the winter. His home is in the direct path of Hurricane Milton.

“I have a feeling there won’t be much sleep and we'll be monitoring about five or six stations from down there to see the coverage,” LeBlanc tells CTV Atlantic. “A lot of exchanges with our friends via calls like this and FaceTime and messenger video because we know we're in contact with most of them.

“Being there for the last 10 years or 11 years, it's going to be tough to see that happening.”

He says there is an evacuation order in place where he lives in Florida, and his friends and family who live down there have been able to leave or find a safe place to tie down for the storm.

He doesn’t plan to head down to the Sunshine State until mid-November, but says that trip could be pushed up sooner depending on the damage.

“I can see why they are issuing mandatory evacuations,” LeBlanc says. “It's quite eerie because we do have security (cameras), our friends have security cameras where we live so we see the Bradenton Police going by either with the bullhorns assuring that people are evacuating, but they can't force people.”

Once the storm blows though Florida, some Maritimers will be ready and eager to help with the cleanup efforts.

Nova Scotia Power has sent several crews down to Florida ahead of the storm to help with the expected damages.

“Nova Scotians are no strangers to the devastating impacts of these kind of weather events,” the utility company says in a social media post. “We are so proud of our colleagues who stand ready to help our American neighbours.”