KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Plenty of Kansas City metro natives are in various parts of Florida, unsure of what Hurricane Irma will bring.
The weather on Florida’s coasts is getting worse and worse, the winds and rain intensifying by the hour.
Independence, Mo. native Jennifer Rellihan is hunkered down with a friend in Cape Canaveral.
Rellihan left her home in Key Largo on Wednesday, days before Irma took aim at Florida.
“It’s one of those things where I have no idea when I return if I’m going to return to a home or not,” Rellihan told 41 Action News in a phone interview.
Rellihan made light out of a scary situation, seen on Cocoa Beach waving her Chiefs flag in the background of a national news broadcast.
“It’s kind of funny. I had no idea, I don’t know. My family keeps kind of laughing at me. I feel like a dork! I miss everybody back home and just wanted to let everyone know I’m safe,” Rellihan said.
Meanwhile, inland in Newberry, Florida, Ashley Gilman also evacuated her home. She's a Kansas City, Kansas native and said her family of six is staying at a friend’s house.
She said the weather there isn’t bad yet, but they’re stocked up with supplies just in case.
“Initially, they were saying it was going to impact the east coast more so I kept the kids and my husband here. And with there being no gas anywhere, it was kind of like a toss-up on what to do,” Gilman said.
Gilman is a nurse and said it took much longer to get to her job as a nurse because of heavy traffic.
She said traffic was moving at five miles an hour on the highway going north. Every store shelf is bare, and gas stations are out of gas.
“It makes me think of what it would be if there was an apocalypse,” Gilman said. “People are fighting over gas.”
Millions of people could be without power for weeks.
“It's kind of scary. I mean, I moved from Kansas to get away from tornados and apparently they’re all over the place down here,” Gilman laughed.
Rellihan said she tried to hurricane-proof her house, but the imminent threat was overwhelming.
“We just got new windows, so I called the window company, which is kind of funny, I asked him if we should put the shutters up. He was like, ‘No, get the hell out!’ He even cussed at me. He said, ‘just get the hell out,’” Rellihan said.
