Shannon O’Keefe, from Coolock, travelled to Florida to celebrate her birthday and had a number of Halloween activities planned in Disneyland. Unfortunately, she was hit with something much more frightening than that.
Hurricane Milton, which President Joe Biden warned could be the “one of the worst storms in 100 years”, arrived from the west coast of Florida last night and this morning.
“We didn’t evacuate, but a lot of people did. We’re in Orlando, near Disneyland, and we were told to stay in our hotel rooms,” Shannon said.
“We got guidelines from the hotel saying go into your bathroom and barricade the bathroom door. Fill up your bath with water and charge your phones; stay away from the doors, close the curtains, and move things at the door. I was freaked.
“We’re so lucky that the electricity didn’t go off. There have been floods outside our hotel though. There’s a lake just right outside our room, so the grass is flooded. But we’re on the second floor, thankfully.
Shannon O’Keefe enjoying her holiday in Disneyland before Hurricane Milton struck
“My family has been petrified. I’m after waking up to so many missed calls from my mam,” Shannon added.
“She’s telling me to write my name on my arm. She was thinking the worst looking at the news. I was just asleep.
“The weather was actually really nice [on Tuesday]. It was beautiful, blue sky, really hot. I thought it wouldn’t be so bad, but it was the calm before the storm.
“On Wednesday morning, everyone was starting to panic and nowhere was open. It was raining so we took it a bit more seriously.
“We were told to get food and supplies; we didn’t even know what supplies meant. So, we just got food. We didn’t get flashlights, or batteries.
“Thank God we didn’t get the worst of it because we wouldn’t have been prepared at all.
“It’s been crazy. Everything we’ve seen in movies, like Twister and those scary end-of-world movies, was happening in front of our eyes.
“It’s mad. I don’t know how anyone lives in Florida. I would never live here.”
Shannon said her birthday trip was “ruined” by the hurricane, but she’s hoping she can make it out of Florida and enjoy the last of her celebrations.
“Our holiday definitely has been ruined. The whole reason we came here in the first place was because it’s my birthday and I’m a Halloween baby,” she said.
“I came here to do all the Halloween attractions. Everything has been cancelled and we can’t go to the rescheduled things.
“We’re going to Salem after this to continue the Halloween trip. Our flight is on Sunday, so I’m praying another tornado doesn’t hit.”
