Caroline Calloway had a few folks worried there.
The Sarasota based influencer announced on Instagram Stories Tuesday that despite Hurricane Milton catapulting her way, she wasn’t leaving.
“I’m going to die,” the 32 year old told her 667K followers, showing a picture of her waterside “writer’s retreat.” Massive storm surge was forecast and the ground-floor location was particularly risky. She said on social media Tuesday that she was staying because couldn’t drive and the airport was closed.
Calloway also said she decided not to stay with her mother who lives in North Port to the south because of a prior bad experience.
“Her whole street flooded and we were evacuated after three days without power or running water by the U.S. military,” Calloway said of being there during Hurricane Ian in 2022. “It was very traumatic.”
Calloway apparently survived the storm because the native Virginian spoke to News Nation’s Chris Cuomo at right around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, when Milton made landfall as a Cat. 3 in Siesta Key, about eight miles north.
Cuomo posted part of their interview on Instagram and Calloway, whose great grandfather was famed Sarasota developer Owen Burns, offered Cuomo a different reason for not evacuating.
“I stayed to help some of my elderly neighbors,” she said, indicating during the interview that the building’s group chat was blowing up.
“I’m going to have to go soon and jump into action,” said the “Scammer” author during the interview. “I don’t know if we’re in the eye.”
