Recently, a man in Tampa, Florida, who has been nicknamed “Lt. Dan,” survived the destruction of Hurricane Milton while remaining on his boat. Despite the hurricane, which was a Category 3 storm at landfall, the man refused to leave his boat, insisting that the safest place to be during the flood waters would be on a boat.
Undeterred by the wind speeds of over 100 miles per hour, Lt. Dan cited the biblical story of Noah’s Ark as his motivation to remain on the sea-faring vessel. Prior to the hurricane’s landfall, he said, “I’m not going anywhere because the safest place to be is on a boat in a flood. We learned that with Noah. Everyone who stayed on land drowned. Noah and the animals lived.”
Following the storm, NewsNation reporter Brian Entin shared a video on X, writing, “Lieutenant Dan is okay!” confirming that the man had survived the hurricane on his boat. Lt. Dan popped his head out of the boat telling Entin that he was “fine,” to which the reporter told him that he had endured what was likely the worst of the storm.
Locals had expressed concern about the man, whose real name is Joseph Malinowski, after it was revealed that he refused to heed evacuation warnings and remained on his sailboat. Furthermore, Malinowski is also an amputee with only one leg, making it even more challenging to fend for himself amid the natural disaster.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor confirmed that law enforcement had successfully rescued Lt. Dan and had taken him to a shelter. However, by the afternoon, he was back out on his boat. “The Tampa Police Department this morning just saved Lt. Dan. He has been rescued and he is now in a shelter as well. So if we can get Lt. Dan to go to a shelter we can get anybody to do that,” the mayor said.
Fortunately, the storm was not as destructive as initially feared, where Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed that the hurricane was not “the worst case scenario.” He said during a press conference, “We will better understand the extent of the damage as the day progresses and you have people that are out there assessing damage right now, first responders have been working all through the night to help people who were in distress. And what we can say is the storm was significant, but thankfully, this was not the worst case scenario.”
DeSantis continued, “The storm did weaken before landfall, and the storm surge, as initially reported, has not been as significant overall as what was observed for hurricane Helene. Right now, it looks like Sarasota County had the most significant storm surge, likely somewhere between eight to 10 feet. And remember, with Helene, we had 15 to 20 feet up in Taylor County, rescue missions have been underway throughout the night. State search and rescue teams report at least 48 individuals have been rescued as of 06 30 National Guard search and rescue teams have worked overnight and successfully executed rescues of families and pets on the West Coast and from the destruction of the tornadoes in East in the central and eastern parts of Florida, the guard continues to work into the morning and have 31 rescue aircraft operational, and hundreds of rescuers engaged in over 125 active missions in 26 different counties, over 6500 soldiers are deployed throughout the state.”
Watch Lt. Dan below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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