OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Pat Henyon feels confident, despite Hurricane Milton approaching.
His wife is a “prepper” who knows how critical it is to be prepared, especially for emergencies. With a big family, this becomes even more important.
“We have lots of animals; we have our parents with us and our grand kids,” says Henyon. ‘Then we have a lot of extended family in the neighborhood.”
His wife runs a business called Lisette’s Yummy Garden in Ocala. They also own a house in Miami-Dade County, where their daughter and his mother-in-law live.
The family had an adventure avoiding Hurricane Irma, spending 17 hours driving from Miami to Orlando.
“It was dead stop. So, unless you’re out four or five days before, we wanted to bug out,” Henyon says. “I’m never going through that again. We went from Miami to Georgia, but it took us three days. And to get back, we had to stop in Ocala to rent a hotel room and were there for about a week-and-a-half. It was thousands of dollars, gas, hotels, food for six to eight people, plus your animals.”
The Henyons own both Lisette’s Yummy Garden and the International Dog House, which is also called Lisette’s Yummy Dogs. The hot dog business operates in front of the Lowe’s located at 3535 SW 36th Ave. in Ocala. Henyon mentions that Lowe’s saw brisk business Tuesday morning, with people coming in from other parts of the state to prepare for the potential threat being posed by Hurricane Milton.
“We’re getting a lot of customers that are coming from out of town, they’re evacuating from Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, looking for supplies,” said Mike Pagano, who manages that particular location. “I have tons of generators. I’m waiting on gas cans. I still have a good supply of plywood, Tapcons and screws and tarps as well. The trucks will continue to flow in today with all those different hurricane supplies. I’m out of propane at the moment, and I’m also about out of water. But we have seen a lot of people coming up from down south. The parking lot was full of RVs this morning.”