The storm may be over but the work is just starting down in Florida.
Last night, Hurricane Milton made landfall at around 8:30pm in Siesta Key, Florida, a small beach village filled with tiki bars and wooden shack-like buildings that is a must visit if you’re ever in the area, so long as they can rebuild it to what it was before the winds and waters took their toll. The entire west-central coastline is still dealing with massive flooding, road closures, and power outages (over 3.3 million people still have no electricity) and so far it’s been announced that 2 people are confirmed to have died but much is yet to be done to determine the total scope of the destruction.
The internet was very happy to learn that Lieutenant Dan survived the night on his sailboat and we were all shocked to see the videos of Tropicana Field with its roof torn to pieces, but now there’s another video spreading that truly puts into perspective how dangerous floodwaters in Florida are compared to most other states.
Florida is home to over 1 million alligators; as the old saying goes, you can tell if a lake or pond have alligators in it if you touch the water and it feels wet. Due to the rains and storm surge, rivers, ponds, and lakes are completely overfilled, forcing these prehistoric creatures out of their comfort zones and into the middle of the chaos.
A video taken in North Fort Myers shows an alligator being disturbed on a flooded street as a sanitation truck tried to power its way through. Seemingly out of nowhere, the gator rises up and attacks the truck’s tire, making one of people’s worst nightmares a reality caught on camera.
In the uncensored video, you can hear a guy in the truck say:
“That was a big f***ing alligator that just bit our tire!”
The quality is much worse in this video but they don’t cut the sound:
Obviously the driver didn’t hit the gator on purpose and was just trying to make it to wherever they were going but my goodness, I can’t fathom having to consider whether there’s a carnivorous reptile lurking in the shadows while out trying to help people.
Fortunately, my friends in Tampa seem to be okay and avoided the worst of it but my prayers are with everyone else down there who’s picking up the pieces of their lives today.
