Wisconsin couple braving hurricane Milton

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The rush to get to higher ground continues Tuesday night in Florida. Hurricane Milton evacuees have jammed state highways, gas stations are running out of fuel, and there are no more flights to or from Tampa. We spoke with a Wisconsin couple who will be riding out their very first hurricane.

The Burlington residents are in Ft. Myers beach cleaning up after Hurricane Helene. They've moved to higher ground, but with all the back and forth after Helene, the chose this time to stay in Florida.

Home surveillance let Betsy Angulo and her partner Tom watch in real-time their Florida home get dumped on by Hurricane Helene, moving them to catch the next flight out of Milwaukee.

"We went down last weekend to clean up. We went home Sunday and then came back Saturday so we could prepare the house for this," said Angulo.

Hurricane Milton's got the couple back at it.

"A lot of work, I'm very sore," said Angulo.

Doing what they can to protect their home on Ft. Myers Beach.

"We Duct taped all the doors, then we got tarps and sandbags, very difficult to find supplies. We got down on Saturday at about Noon and almost all the stores were out of sandbags. Gasoline is another thing that's hard because so many people evacuating," said Angulo.

The Red Cross has nearly 800 volunteers in Florida including 62 from Wisconsin. A good number arrived for Helene clean-up and plan to extend their deployments for Milton.

"A lot of times what happens is that they will have like a headquarters that's maybe like 30 miles away or so and they wait to see like where the storm actually hits and then we move in," said Jennifer Warren, Red Cross spokesperson.

Jennifer Warren says monetary donations are greatly needed, so is blood.

"There's probably over 1,000 blood drives that have been cancelled in the Southeast as a result of Hurricane Helene alone so we need blood donors," said Warren.

This was Betsy Angulo's home after Hurricane Ian in 2022, one hit after another she says, and today, she's fled to higher ground staying in a Naples condo, but her voice gets shaky as she thinks of a beloved neighbor who's riding out the storm along the water.

"My friend, not really happy with him, decided to stay at our neighbors' house so I'm hoping he changes his mind between today and tomorrow," said Angulo.

We asked the Burlington resident what she'd like people back home to know. She said she'd just like them to pray for those in Milton's path.