HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Hollywood residents are gearing up and preparing for what Hurricane Milton will bring to the area.
While the projected path of the storm has it expected to make landfall on the west coast, north of South Florida, many residents who were loading up with sandbags at Jefferson Park say it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“We are just going to get water, on water, on water,” said Hollywood resident Lesley Pristavec. “It is not if it hits us early on, it is the bands that are going to be the worst. It is just going to dump.”
The expected excess rain is known to flood low-lying areas of Hollywood.
At North 14th Avenue and Harding Street, mobile pumps have been working since Sunday to clear the area following heavy rains.
In other parts of the city, the ground is already so saturated from days of downpours, it’s not flood waters that cars were getting stuck in, but mud that stopped drivers in their tracks.
The city of Hollywood has waived fees for its four parking garages: two in downtown Hollywood and two in Hollywood Beach, where people were leaving their cars to avoid them being damaged in possible floods.
There, Local 10 News’ Roy Ramos spotted residents from the west coast of Florida like Gene Hardy and his wife Joe, who left their Fort Myers community along with their dog Maggie with plans of riding out the storm in Broward.
“They were evacuating the community where we were and so we decided at the last minute yesterday that this was the best choice,” Gene Hardy said.