(La Porte County, IN) - A La Porte County native living in Florida has chosen to stay home during the hurricane while another former resident is waiting out the storm in Georgia.

 

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall tonight or early this morning in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area on the state’s west coast.

 

Greg Schultz lives about a two hour drive away near Orlando where the weather extremes are not expected to be as bad since he’s about a two hour drive away from where the full force of the storm is expected to be felt.

 

Eight to 12 inches of rain and up to 90 mile per hour winds are still in the forecast where Schultz resides but he’s chosen to ride out the storm.

 

Schultz, a 1997 graduate of New Prairie High School, said he’s focused right now on making sure his generator is working properly and other preparations have been made for the storm but knows he’ll become jittery when the storm hits.

 

“Yes, I’ll be nervous but right now we’re in a prep mode making sure we’re ready,” he said.

 

Bob Costigan lives just four miles east of the Gulf of Mexico, which is close to where the center of the storm at winds of 120 miles per hour or more is expected to hit.

 

He said it took him about 19 hours to make the drive to a hotel room south of Atlanta, a trip that should have taken just six or seven hours because of major highways jammed with people evacuating before the hurricane strikes.

 

“For probable half of the trip, it was five to ten miles per hour,” he said.

 

Costigan, who was News Director at 96.7 The Eagle during the late 90’s and early 2000’s, said he did not have the flooding and other destruction others experienced from the recent Hurricane Helene that hit Florida and moved up into the southeast.

 

However, he’s not expecting to get so lucky this time.

 

“Eventually, we’ll go back to see what’s left of my home,” he said.