Over a dozen lakeshore area football fans who traveled to Tampa, Florida for Sunday’s Green Bay Packers game may have to make alternate travel arrangements for return flights with the approach of Hurricane Ian.
Many of them were able to watch Valders High School graduate and Whitelaw resident, Luke Goedeke, start at left guard for the Buccaneers in his rookie season.
Three of those in attendance at the game in Florida were Rob “Gumby” Roseff, his wife Denise, and one of their sons.
“Storms are coming in soon and there’s been like test evacuations going on,” Gumby explained. “So, we’re just kind of looking right now at alternatives where we can evacuate to that we can catch Allegiant Airlines. They fly out of Savannah, Georgia or Charlotte, North Carolina, so we’re looking at possibly renting a car or hitching a ride with my high school buddy Ron Cisler and getting to one of those locations.”
The storm is expected to hit midweek and as a precaution all schools in the Tampa area are closed through Thursday.
During a conference call Monday morning with Rob, we also connected with Mark Sampson, who specialized in forecasting such storms during 28 years in the Navy.
“I think really what we’ve been telling people to focus on is not necessarily the specific track of the storm, but the possible area,” he told us.
Sampson called it “the cone of uncertainty, which covers the entire west coast of Florida, and then the other part of it goes west and takes it up to the Panhandle.”
Roseff also spoke with us about his present mindset.
“My biggest concern at this point is trying to get back home,” he said. “I feel relatively safe being we’re staying in a beautiful home that’s well-constructed. And, I have my best friend from high school with me that lives in South Carolina. He’s offered to let us ride with him back to South Carolina if they have to do the Charleston exit plan.”
Sampson, who has extensive training in Meteorology said, “You basically have to get away from the coast and the flood areas and hunker down from the winds.”
