TAMPA, FL (WKBW) — The path of Hurricane Ian is impacting millions, including Buffalo natives.
Hurricane Ian has taken a devastating toll on Florida's southwestern coast. The Category 4 storm is one of the most powerful storms to ever to make landfall.
"This was historical. A lot of rain, a lot of wind and a lot of clean up," Andy Kowalick said.
Kowalick currently lives in Bradenton, Florida, which was supposed to be the eye of the storm.
"That could've been us and that's how I look at it, where we're talking, I mean, night and day," he said.
Now, there is a lot of clean up at his apartment complex.
"Here's the pool. Our pool looks gorgeous and it usually has fountains and we don't have anything now," he said explaining on a Zoom interview, "You can see the palm trees all in one direction, I mean they're literally flattened.
Not far from him is Buffalo native Alyssa Helak who lives in the Tampa area.
"We had power outages which was expected and there's just a ton of trees and branches down," she said.
Trees were knocked down outside of her condo, but she said she was able to leave before the storm had arrived.
"My family and I we decided that I was going to drive to Atlanta. So, I woke up super early on Tuesday. I drove to Atlanta and I caught a flight home to Buffalo," Helak added.
After slamming Florida's coast, Hurricane Ian has now made its way through South Carolina as a Category 1 storm. South Buffalo native Emily Pettys is in Johns Island, just outside of Charleston.
"We picked up batteries and you know I bought some jugs of water, but that was basically the gist, and some beer," Pettys said laughing.
She and her fiancé are planning to hunker down. Her fiancé is a Charleston native, so Pettys said he knows how to handle these situations.
"We live in a heavily wooded area, so if a tree were to fall that would be our biggest problem," she added.
As she and her fiancé wait for the rain and wind to pass, Kowalick said he is grateful to be on the other side of the storm.
"Blue skies, I mean it's amazing what 3 days, 72 hours can change a lot," he added.
