Many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are caught up in mandatory evacuation orders as Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida. The powerful storm is expected to hit Florida tomorrow. Many residents are heading for safer ground, while others plan to ride it out.

Judy and Brian Mullaly are originally from this province but have been living on Florida’s southwest coast, in Fort Myers, for almost three decades. Living on the water makes them especially concerned about potential storm surge. The region is under a mandatory evacuation order, and the couple left for Orlando early this morning.

“I have a hurricane kit that i replenish every year,” Mullaly says.

The couple is all too familiar with the threat of powerful storms. It was just two years ago that Hurricane Ian devastated Fort Myers with a category five storm directly affecting the Mullaly’s home. But their home meets meets the high standard of today’s hurricane codes.

“We have 175 km winds over our home for eight hours. One of the things we learned, to the homes under the new codes hold up extremely well,” Mullaly said.

But some residents are staying put and riding out the storm. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous,” says Corrine Drover.

Originally from Come by Chance, Drover has called St. Petersburg, Florida home for about two years. Living in a mobile home, she says she will be riding out the storm inside. But she does say she is stocked up, and prepared to evacuate if need be. “If need be we will go to the shelter,” she says. “We are smart people. We are not going to stay here if it means risking our lives in this horrible storm.”

Milton could make landfall Wednesday night in the Tampa Bay area, which has a population of more than 3 million people. In fact, most of Florida’s west coast was under a hurricane or tropical storm warning as the system and its 155 mph winds spun just off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

According to CTV News, The National Hurricane Center downgraded Milton early Tuesday to a Category 4 hurricane, but forecasters said it still posed ” an extremely serious threat to Florida.”

U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida, and 7,000 federal workers were helping in one of history’s largest such mobilizations. “This could be the worst storm to hit Florida in over a century,” Biden told reporters. “God willing it won’t be. But that’s what it’s looking like right now.”