Florida man won't evacuate for Hurricane Milton, plans to 'swim out' to safety after surge hits

Lifelong Floridian, Matthew Heller, has decided to stay in Tampa as officials warn residents in evacuation zones that they must leave the area.

Heller, a business owner, told Fox News Digital that he is not sure which direction the storm is headed and some of his neighbors have already evacuated.

“Some of my neighbors have smaller children. For me, it’s just me. My house is my livelihood, so I plan on hunkering down. But I have seen other folks leave,” he said.

COASTAL FLORIDIAN WARNS OTHERS TO ‘GET OUT’ AS HURRICANE MILTON CLOSES IN: ‘WE HAVE NO IDEA’ WHAT’S COMING

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued a dire warning this week to those who do not leave evacuation locations, “If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” she told CNN on Monday. 

“If at any time I feel threatened, I do have a life jacket I’ll be wearing and I’m hoping to just kind of swim out. I’ve moved all my vehicles the past couple of days to higher, high-and-dry locations. So hopefully I can just kind of swim over to one of those and hang tight while the water recedes,” Heller said.

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Heller said he is seeing “total pandemonium” with residents searching for gas.

“I wanted to fill up my tank. I had about half a tank and just want to top it off…it took 10 stations. They all have plastic over the pumps, and once I found an open station…folks [were] not lining up properly in queue people screaming, honking the horn. And the storm hasn’t even got here yet. So terrifying,” he said.

Heller battled Hurricane Helene which hit the same area just weeks ago, leaving his entire home flooded reaching a high of five and a half feet of water.

“The trash has been lined up in our streets for over 11 days now. There’s so much storm debris from last time, I haven’t really seen any efforts to clean that up. So I don’t know, [we are] kind of on our own here,” Heller said.

Heller went viral on TikTok for riding around his flooded home during Hurricane Helene in a kayak and filming shots showing the water-damaged dwelling.

“I’ve been recovering all week, removing drywall, and then the entire downstairs, my house was decimated. That’s all sitting at the curb now. The city of Tampa told us to leave it on bag. So I have all this loose construction debris. My big concern is that debris clogging any kind of drainage systems and causing more problems or becoming missiles and or projectiles and damaging other property and things,” said Heller.

Heller said that his family is concerned about his safety.