Minnesotan who road-tripped to Florida takes shelter as Hurricane Milton approaches

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: And as you've heard, Hurricane Milton is approaching Florida's West Coast right now. It's expected to make landfall tonight or early tomorrow morning. Here in Minnesota, there's special attention on the storm because so many Minnesotans now live there or have a second vacation home in Florida.

For the past few days, hundreds of thousands of people have evacuated their homes, clogging hotels and highways to get out of the path of the hurricane. One of them is St. Paul resident Tim Dykstal. Tim lives in Minnesota, but drove down to Florida about a week ago to stay in a shared family condo and play a little golf in Palm Harbor. That's about a mile inland from the coast.

He left the condo. He's in a shelter to ride out the storm, and he's on the line right now. Tim, where exactly are you?

TIM DYKSTAL: Hey, Cathy. I'm in Orlando, a hotel, not a shelter in Orlando.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So you're in Orlando and you decided to drive then from where you were to Orlando. How are you doing?

TIM DYKSTAL: Doing OK so far. It's just a little light rain here. It's been raining a lot, but it's going to get much worse later.

CATHY WURZER: OK. When did you decide that you didn't want to hang around Palm Harbor anymore?

TIM DYKSTAL: Well, it was a calculated decision. I talked to a number of people in the resort. Most of them were going to stay. But then, of course, the governor issued a mandatory evacuation order for the zone that I was in, the flood zone that we're in. And that's when I decided to get out of there.

CATHY WURZER: Did you talk to anybody else around you in terms of what they were thinking about?

TIM DYKSTAL: I did before I left, but not after. I actually left very early in the morning to avoid the traffic. On Interstate 4, there was a lot of traffic, though, as we got closer, as I got closer to Orlando.

CATHY WURZER: Did you have any trouble getting gas or anything like that?

TIM DYKSTAL: I did in Palm Harbor. I did. Had to drive around to about four different stations. Yeah, they were all out. I found something finally.

CATHY WURZER: What were you thinking?

TIM DYKSTAL: I was thinking that next October I'm going to stay in Minnesota because October is a beautiful month to be in Minnesota and a nice month to be in Florida, except the Hurricanes.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. So I'm wondering about your family condo. I don't know how long you've had it, but has it withstood storms before?

TIM DYKSTAL: Yeah, as I said, when I was surveying opinions at the condo, most of the other residents were very matter of fact about these hurricanes. They get a lot of them here and they just were going to ride it out. I think this one is bigger than any one that they've experienced so far. And as you know, I think Tampa-- the Palm Harbor is just north of Tampa. Tampa itself has never really gotten a direct hit on a hurricane since the 1921, I think.

CATHY WURZER: So it sounds like it could well be a huge, huge problem here by late tonight or early tomorrow morning. So you decided to get out. So was it tough to find a hotel?

TIM DYKSTAL: It was very hard. I looked around north of Tampa. That seemed to be the smartest place to go, but all the hotels were booked. I managed to get a single night here, a single night there. Finally, I did find this place in Southwest Orlando that had three nights consecutive. I'm going to stay here through Thursday, I think, and then try to head back, of course. Who knows?

CATHY WURZER: Did you ever consider leaving your car and trying to fly back at all?

TIM DYKSTAL: Not really, no.

CATHY WURZER: OK Well, I mean, tickets are really expensive, I understand.

TIM DYKSTAL: Yeah, I wasn't. I don't know. I'm still trying to live out the vacation here, but it seems like this problem is bigger than that now.

CATHY WURZER: So Orlando, though, my friend, is still in the path of this storm. So tell me a little bit about what you're hearing in Orlando and what the weather is like right now.

TIM DYKSTAL: Well, it's cloudy and wet and rainy. I think it's going to get pretty nasty here about 2 AM, they say, and then continue windy and rainy through the early morning hours. I'm actually more worried about-- excuse me, actually more worried about floods or flood risk than the wind. Most of Florida is just a swamp and it's getting swampier here all the time. So I'm going to survey the scene about that. Maybe moved to higher ground.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, sounds like that might be a good idea. Has hotel staff said anything about-- so if it gets really tough, where do the tough go? I mean, do they have a plan?

TIM DYKSTAL: No, they don't. They're just kind of acting businesslike. There are a lot of evacuees in this hotel, though. And I can tell because they have buckets of water in the back of their cars and stuff like that. But no one seems to be evacuating from the hotel anyway at this point.

CATHY WURZER: And it sounds like the hotel staff is expecting that they can handle anything.

TIM DYKSTAL: They did put out a written notice about power. We're not liable for property that gets damaged or the power goes out. But also they've been very helpful and very accommodating.

CATHY WURZER: Have you had a chance to talk to any of your fellow evacuees in the hotel at all?

TIM DYKSTAL: Oh yeah, I have, and I've been listening to their conversations downstairs at breakfast. A lot of them are trying to do their jobs from the hotel. Talking to family, friends. Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: And since you were at the family condo, have you had a chance to call back here to Minnesota and chat with your family?

TIM DYKSTAL: Oh, sure, yeah. I've got everybody's in contact. So they know where I am and they're looking out for me.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, so many Minnesotans live on that Gulf Coast who are probably in similar situations right now. Yeah. Have you heard from any other friends?

TIM DYKSTAL: Yeah. Yeah. I have a very supportive network. I appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. So you're there at the hotel. You're safe, which is good. That's a good thing. And you're going to try to ride this thing out. Any idea in terms of then what happens after that, or are you just-- it sounds like you're just going to what? Just wait to see what happens.

TIM DYKSTAL: Well, yeah. I mean, the resort the condo is in is already talking about reopening the resort or the golf courses on Friday, which seems ambitious to me. We'll just see how it hits them. These things are very unpredictable.

One person I talked to at the resort said that he was done writing from hurricanes because he said one time when he followed his family's advice and ran away from the storm, the storm sort of followed him, tracked him where he wound up. So he said, I'm just going to wait here and play it out. Shelter in place.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah. We've heard from a number of Minnesotans in the past couple of days who've said the same thing, that one individual tried to run from a hurricane. That didn't work out really, really well. So he's like, nope, I'm staying here. He's in Fort Myers. I'm going to stay here, hunker down. He went to the liquor store yesterday and he's ready to go. So that's what he's told us.

TIM DYKSTAL: Yeah. I got a weird assortment of food in my hotel room that I kind of grabbed at the last minute as I was leaving the condo. So yeah, I'm prepared.

CATHY WURZER: OK. It sounds like you-- I would be surprised, but maybe it is possible you might get a few rounds of golf in at the end of the week. Who knows?

TIM DYKSTAL: I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. Like I said, I think next October I'll stay in Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: That sounds, Tim, like a pretty good idea.

TIM DYKSTAL: Yeah. Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: Well, I mean, you're safe. We appreciate hearing your voice. We're going to keep our fingers and toes crossed for you and everybody else down there, and hope everything's going to be OK. Keep in touch with us, OK?

TIM DYKSTAL: Oh, thanks. Thanks for calling.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely Tim Dykstal has been with us. He lives in St. Paul, and he's in Orlando, Florida right now at a hotel. He's going to wait out the storm.