As Hurricane Milton bares down, most Florida residents are busy fortifying their homes, planning their escape, or just praying that the storm passes without harm. But some are using it as a selfie opportunity.
A live camera feed looking at the Southernmost Point Buoy in Key West — a tourist attraction that claims to be the southernmost point in the continental U.S. — showed dozens of people taking photos despite the imminent danger.
Viewers of the live stream couldn’t believe their eyes as a shirtless man appeared wearing Stars and Stripes shorts to pose for a photo with his girlfriend.
“Risking their lives for taking pictures, wow!” Wrote one exacerbated viewer. “Pictures for memories when they drown maybe,” another person sarcastically commented.
One couple arrived at the buoy and waved at the live camera, enraging the comments further.
It must be said that Key West is not expected to get the worst of Hurricane Milton; the center is expected to land at Tampa Bay but that can change in the blink of an eye.
CBS reports that the port in Key West is closed so are schools and government offices. Storm surges could be an issue in the Keys.
Landfall is expected late Wednesday or the early hours of Thursday when it is forecast to bring flash flooding, storm surges of up to 15 feet, and powerful winds that will tear apart homes and rip trees from their roots.
The category 4 hurricane could bring widespread destruction to Florida which has avoided direct hits for more than a century, according to the Associated Press.
Eleven Florida counties, home to approximately six million people, are under mandatory evacuation. The Florida Keys is not one of them instead it is under a tropical storm warning.
Milton is forecast to cross central Florida and dump as much as 18 inches (46 centimeters) of rain as it heads toward the Atlantic Ocean. If that path is correct then it would largely spare other states ravaged by Helene, which killed at least 230 people on its path from Florida to the Carolinas.
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