A RESTAURANT owner who has kept his dive bar open to customers for over 30 years without ever shutting his doors has defiantly refused to close despite warnings about the once-in-a-century hurricane.
Hurricane Milton is poised to be one of the worst storms in 100 years to rock Florida – a state still reeling from the devastation Helene caused 12 days ago.
Florida lawmakers have warned its Gulf Coast residents to evacuate immediately before the storm’s expected landfall late Wednesday.
Hurricane Milton, which downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 4 storm on Tuesday, is expected to thrash west-central Florida with 150 mph winds and the potential for 15 feet of storm surge.
But despite the dire warnings from experts and state officials, Becky Oldfield said her father and mother-in-law don’t plan on closing up shop.
“Big Rip” Oldfield and his wife, Debby, have owned and operated The Rock Springs Bar & Grill in Apopka, Florida, about 25 miles north of Orlando, since 1986.
Since then, Oldfield has kept his doors open through the Covid-19 pandemic, holidays, and the destructive forces of Hurricanes Wilma (2005), Irma (2017), and Ian (2022).
“We’re still having karaoke tonight as we do every Tuesday,” Becky told The U.S. Sun.
“We’ve ordered 300 cases of beer. These people are very nuts around here. It’s a dive bar.
“We usually get a storm crowd during a hurricane.”
They’re staying the night in the bar. We have six generators ready to crank it up.
Becky Oldfield
Becky and her husband, “Big Rip” Jr., run an ice and water stand, Twice the Ice, steps from her in-laws’ dive bar.
She said dozens of people have visited her stand, which is open 24 hours, to stock up on ice and water as they brace for Hurricane Milton’s arrival.
Meanwhile, the Oldfields plan to take shelter at their bar and have six generators ready for emergencies.
“They’re staying the night in the bar,” Becky told The U.S. Sun.
“We have six generators ready to crank it up.”
However, despite her in-laws’ commitment to weather the storm, Becky said they’ll be forced to close the restaurant if the situation becomes unbearable.
“If it gets crazy, it will shut down,” she said.
“But, me personally, I don’t think they will shut down because they’re crazy.”
‘ASTRONOMICAL’ STORM
More than a million people have been ordered to evacuate from Hurricane Milton’s path – with an additional six million under hurricane-watch warning.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned the city’s almost 400,000 residents to evacuate.
“I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” Castor told CNN.
“This is something that I have never seen in my life, and anyone who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area has never seen this before.”
Orlando meteorologist Noah Bergren described the storm as “nothing short of astronomical.”
“I am at a loss for words to meteorologically describe you the storms small eye and intensity,” he wrote on X.
This is not a storm you want to take a risk on.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the hurricane is already far stronger than predicted two days ago.
“This is a ferocious hurricane,” DeSantis said.
“At the strength it is now, this is a really, really strong storm.
“The effects of that, not just from the storm surge but from wind damage and debris, will be really, really significant.
“This is not a storm you want to take a risk on.”
Liz Alpert, the mayor of Sarasota, one of the cities on Florida’s Gulf Coast that is on the direct path of the hurricane, warned residents to vacate the area.
“What everyone has been saying is you have to evacuate; it’s not survivable to survive a 10 to 15-foot storm surge. It just simply isn’t,” Alpert told NBC News.
“I think people are heeding that warning after having lived through Helene.”
President Joe Biden canceled his overseas trip on Tuesday as the catastrophic risk Milton poses on Florida increases.
Biden was scheduled to depart for Berlin on Thursday and then head south to Angola before returning to the United States on October 15.
“Given the projected trajectory and strength of Hurricane Milton, President Biden is postponing his upcoming trip to Germany and Angola in order to oversee preparations for and the response to Hurricane Miltion, in addition to the ongoing response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene across the Southeast,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told NBC News in a statement.
What is a hurricane and how do they form?
A HURRICANE is another name for a tropical cyclone – a powerful storm that forms over warm ocean waters near the equator.
Those arising in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific are called hurricanes, while those in the western Pacific and Indian Ocean are dubbed typhoons or cyclones.
North of the equator they spin anticlockwise because of the rotation of the Earth, however, they turn the opposite way in the southern hemisphere.
Cyclones are like giant weather engines fuelled by water vapor as it evaporates from the sea.
Warm, moist air rises away from the surface, creating a low-pressure system that sucks in air from surrounding areas – which in turn is warmed by the ocean.
As the vapour rises it cools and condenses into swirling bands of cumulonimbus storm clouds.
The system grows and spins faster, sucking in more air and feeding off the energy in seawater that has been warmed by the sun.
At the center, a calm “eye” of the storm is created where cooled air sinks towards the ultra-low pressure zone below, surrounded by spiraling winds of warm air rising.
The faster the wind, the lower the air pressure at the center, and the storm grows stronger and stronger.
Tropical cyclones usually weaken when they hit land as they are no longer fed by evaporation from the warm sea.
But they often move far inland – dumping vast amounts of rain and causing devastating wind damage – before the “fuel” runs out and the storm peters out.
Hurricanes can also cause storm surges when the low air pressure sucks the sea level higher than normal, swamping low-lying coasts.
