Central Illinois transplants battling Florida's hurricane season

DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - Hurricane season continues to batter Florida, as Milton made landfall from the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday night.

"It's the price of paradise," said Todd Tuggle, a Decatur native now living in Ft. Myers Beach.

Nicole Thomas, also from Decatur and now living in Naples, said, "We're all just hunkering down. All my neighbors are here. We're all just checking on each other."

No matter how long these central Illinoisans have lived in Florida, hurricane season is always a concern.

"We had no idea what to expect," Jennifer Tuggle, Todd's wife, said. "We had ideas in our mind, but we were clueless. It's better to get out than sit there and wish you had done something differently."

The Tuggles made the decision to evacuate on Monday, but Thomas has decided to stay and ride out the storm at her home.

"We actually are not coastline, our house is not," Thomas said. "As far as wind goes, we just had impact windows put in, so obviously putting those to the test now, but I have a lot of confidence in those."

Hurricane Milton is bringing back memories of Hurricane Ian in 2022. Ian wiped out Ft. Myers Beach and brought destruction across the state of Florida, even into the Carolinas.

"In Ian, we had 15 foot storm surge on the beach and we were staying in a first floor condo that was right on the beach and it was completely wiped out," Jennifer said. "Not just damaged, we didn't just have some wet drywall. It was gone."

For Thomas, being inland helped in 2022, too.

"We didn't get the surge in Ian that was that extreme, one-of-a-kind surge a couple of years ago, so we feel comfortable that we're probably not going to see it again," Thomas added.

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm near Siesta Key, Florida Wednesday night.