Hurricane Milton brings evacuees to Omaha metro campground
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Some Omaha metro area businesses are feeling the effects of a storm that’s set to cause damage thousands of miles away.
Forecasters believe Hurricane Milton could produce the worst storm surge in more than a century, and many people in the southeastern U.S. are not waiting to find out, driving away in droves to escape the danger Milton will likely bring.
Skip Zornow lived in Florida for 50 years. He’s been through many hurricanes and now, with this current round of rough weather, he and his crew left Florida early.
They’ve seen enough.
“We’re not going back,” Zornow said. “I mean, we’ll go back and visit folks but we’re not going to live there anymore. Just not going to do it. We ran from a couple of them because of the trailer that was sitting in our driveway. You don’t want to have that sitting there with 90 mph winds coming through. Every time there was a hurricane, we just ran.”
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Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida’s Gulf Coast
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There are other campers like Zornow who evacuated and are waiting at the storm at the KOA Campground in Gretna. This time of year, the place is usually not so busy.
“We’re staying busier later into the year due to the storm,” said Jesse McCrossin, the campground’s general manager. “We lose a lot of our staff because we’re a seasonal campground, so we’re running a little shorthanded right now. Let a lot of our staff go not knowing that we were going to get all these extra campers.”
Steve Couch is just traveling through. He was on his way to Jacksonville, Fla., to spend the winter there with friends. For now, that plan has been put on pause.
“[We’ll] keep our eye on things,” Couch said. “The people we’re going to visit and hang out with for the whole winter are all kind of doing the same thing. Getting stuff prepared. Jacksonville looks to be on the north end of what the hurricane is going to do. Looks like it’s going to skirt them.”
Both Zornow and Couch told 6 News that they know people in Florida who plan to stay at home and ride out the storm. Fortunately for Couch, he says the luxury of retirement gives him time to visit other places before he goes to Florida — if he even does.
“If it’s looking like it’s going to continue to be an issue, we’ll just hang back,” Couch said. “We don’t have to be anywhere.”
But Zornow plans to stay in the heartland for a while, and though he might be safe from hurricanes, he knows he’ll have to deal with another type of severe weather here.
“I mean, now we’re going to have to put up with tornadoes, I imagine,” Zornow said with a chuckle.
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