John Paul Nohelj has lived in Steinhatchee for two decades. For him, the northwest Florida town set among marshes and forests is paradise on Earth, and he won’t leave — despite being in the crosshairs of a churning hurricane.
Little does he care about the evacuation order issued by authorities for his county and several others along Florida’s Gulf coast, where Hurricane Idalia is forecast to roar ashore early Wednesday.
Sitting on the porch of his creaky wooden home, Nohelj appears unfazed by what could be a looming disaster.
“I’ve lived on the coast of Florida my whole life and this is where I love to be,” the 71-year-old, who breathes with the help of an oxygen tank, tells AFP Tuesday.
“If you live near the water, you’re gonna get a wet butt once in a while,” he says, downplaying the hurricane threat that has many of his neighbors scrambling to evacuate to safer regions.
Steinhatchee is a quiet pocket of Florida. It has some 1,000 residents, lush trees, beautiful wooden homes and abundant water, notably the river that runs through town and into the nearby Gulf of Mexico.বিস্তারিত