“As soon as the sun went down, that’s when the rain really picked up,” Andrew Clifford said. “Closer to 9:30 pm/10 o’clock, that’s when it started to get a little hairy out there.”

You heard from Schenectady native, Andrew Clifford shortly before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Siesta Key Wednesday night.

NewsChannel 13 checked back in with Clifford to see how he faired as he rode out the storm from his home in Wesley Chapel. It’s about 30 minutes northeast of Tampa.

“I was telling my wife; I know it will be scary, but we really should probably try to get some rest while we can.”

Clifford moved to Florida in 2021. Wesley Chapel is more inland but everyone in the path of Milton felt its wrath.

“Everything just really intensified. Once we hit 11/12 o’clock, that’s where it got really scary. We started hearing the house rattle,” he said.

Clifford said his home was unscathed for Helene just several days before, and fortunately, he said there was barely any damage for round two.

“We didn’t lose really anything. Our cars are okay they were in the driveway and had no damage. A couple of shingles off the roof.”

Other folks closer to the coast weren’t as lucky. Duanesburg native, Glenn Schworm and his wife, Amber have a home with a waterfront view in St. Petersburg.

They lost three cars to flooding from Helene and their mud room and garage flooded!

“We stayed for that. We watched the water come five inches to our front door, as we sat there and watched and prayed and said, ‘Please. Please. Don’t come into our house’ If it comes in the house we’re going to have a big problem,” Glenn said. “Then Milton comes along. We heard about it, and we knew as it started to intensify, we had to leave.”

They decided to evacuate to Orlando with their two young kids because of Milton. They have not made it back to St. Pete yet.

“I don’t believe our house flooded but there was still over 100 miles an hour wind. We’re not sure what wind damage we may have. We might go back to a house that has no roof,” Amber said.

The Schworms are still trying to decide what is the best day to head back to St. Pete from Orlando. We plan to keep in touch with them for the next few days. If we have any updates, we will share them on NewsChannel 13.