On the afternoon of October 10, author and influencer Carolyn Calloway texted me “I was a bitch.” She posted a screenshot of the same proof-of-life selfie and message to her Instagram story the morning after Hurricane Milton made landfall.
We talked a day earlier about Calloway’s decision not to transfer for a storm monster, as well as posting about that choice on social media, and at one point I asked if he thought he was going to die.
“One day,” he told me, “we all are.”
Yes, Milton was aware of the heavy storms that would likely wash away parts of the kingdom. He knew it would take a shocking amount of emotional and financial toll. For now, we don’t know Milton’s total devastation. But it stands At least 14 people have died and 3 million people are without power. Milton spawned “dozens” of tornadoes across the state, According to the Associated Press.
“It was a really hard choice to stay or go. And I didn’t make it lightly,” he told me, “but you know what, if I could serve up entertainment on the Internet? So be it.”
Calloway isn’t the only Floridian eviction refuser posting this. There are a lot of them, especially on TikTok. There is a woman who told her followers that she was instructed to have enough food and water for three days and decided that she “Some kind of barbecue“(He posted that Thursday evening he was safe). There’s a Floridian celebrity who goes by the name “Lt. Andwho came safely out of the storm in his boat. And then there’s the woman who didn’t want to Leaving his huge concrete house Partly because he wanted to “save” it, and partly because his stay would, in his words, “piss off” liberals. (His account now shows as “forbiddenon TikTok.)
Disobeying evacuation orders is not a new phenomenon. But to do this is to get millions of views on TikTok. So why are these people staying? And why are they posting?
The psychology behind living through a hurricane and posting
One of the most important things to know about StormTok is that having the ability to leave and decide to stay behind is a choice that most people who don’t evacuate don’t have.
“The real story is that most people who don’t move don’t move. “Evacuation is expensive.” Call DaveA meteorologist and storm chaser based at Ball State University, tells me. The call describes situations where people can’t get off work, can’t afford hotels, don’t have reliable transportation, and can’t afford food. Factors such as not being able to speak English and being an undocumented immigrant also affect those contingency plans. Evacuation is not a viable option for these people, and we rarely see their stories, call stress.
Being able to stay and share what’s happening is basically a luxury.
Call chases the tornado, and he explains that there’s little difference between what storm chasers do and what these hurricane posters are getting, even if they’re both technically documenting storms.
“These people differ from tornado chasers because they are not driven by a desire to see extreme weather, but by other factors,” Call says. “They don’t understand the scale of hurricanes. Some keep their lives in their homes and think that it is safe enough. There is also overlap between these people and those who drive in floodwaters, refuse shelter in storms, drive recklessly, etc.”
The takeaway is that there are many factors that go into the psychological decision to stay in place and weather a hurricane like Milton. Barbara MillettAn assistant professor at the University of Miami, echoes that sentiment. Part of Millet’s research has focused on disaster communication and how the public perceives it Hazards and hurricane risk.
“Evacuation decisions are complicated. They are versatile and they are personal. There is no single cause, but rather a combination of factors that really affect individuals and families,” Millett told Vox
He explains that these factors range from money, past experience with hurricane evacuations to uncertainty about the forecast, to the perception that staying at home might be safer. Disaster fatigue, the full process of rebuilding, lack of trust in lawmakers and officials, and everything in between can influence someone’s decision not to follow evacuation protocols.
“Perhaps not all of these factors apply to any one particular person, but there is certainly a combination of them that influences people’s decision – or not – to evacuate,” adds Millett.
If there’s one reassuring side to these highly viral videos of people hunkering down and ignoring evac orders, it’s that they’re citing reasons and motivations that line up with research. Scientists know the reasons why people don’t move, like cost and lack of trust in officials, and are finding better ways to address those concerns.
“Most of our surveys show the same reasons they were giving None of the reasons mentioned were surprising in those videos,” said Who is Quit?is an associate professor at Rutgers University who studies risk and emergency communication. Cute and his colleagues were surprised by how popular the videos became They wondered if that engagement might be another driver of human decision-making.
“Looking at these videos raises the question of whether there’s a perverse incentive to stay in the form of driving engagement in people’s accounts and not take off,” adds Cuite. “We don’t know if that’s happening, but it certainly raises that question.”
In that same vein, Millett and Call worry that this may be one of the reasons why people post their disapproval of the evacuation and gain millions of views in the process. someone else’Deciding to move away from staying put.
“Social media provides official information to communicate to a larger group, but it also allows unofficial information and misinformation to be communicated, and that’s what worries me the most,” Millett tells me. “Misinformation and how it affects people’s ability to make decisions, the actions they need to take.”
Why people are making hurricanes a topic
Calloway’s decision to stay was not prompted by a lack of information. She explained that she had been following all the news surrounding Milton and the storm but that mitigating factors such as her inability to drive and her desire to care for elderly neighbors held her back. He further elaborated that his experience of moving to Ian in 2022 also shaped his decision.
“I decided the right thing for me and my immediate community was to stay,” Calloway told me. “They are my first priority.”
He explained that he had previously respected evacuation protocols for Hurricane Ian in 2022, fled to his mother’s home in Northport, Florida, and needed a military rescue anyway. He added that he is on the third floor of his concrete condo and has hurricane-proof windows.
He admits that with all these posts, he hopes to promote his latest project (“I’ll be stuck for two days anyway – let’s sell some books. That’s kind of my attitude.”) which might be a book about to survive. Judging by the many posts about whether or not Calloway would survive the hurricane, the ironic praise for Calloway’s insistence on promoting his new book, and the attention his posts have garnered from Milton’s eyes, he has successfully provided the Internet with some form of entertainment. He is also no stranger to the dangers of misinformation the rumor She is said to be living on the ground floor of her condo, which she says was built by a “blind idiot.”
It wasn’t lost on Calloway that there was a certain schadenfreude or a serious illness from people seeing her posts online, much of this attention predicated on her possible death.
The manner in which obituaries are consumed and re-promoted on social media speaks to both society’s rubber-necking and many viewers’ judgments about the reality of the posters. These Floridians had the money and resources to move and chose to rub people the wrong way, but it also got them very invested.
We can’t help but be curious about the before-and-after photos. Some want to see the woman whose concrete house is destroyed or the woman barbecuing in standing water in a raging storm, realizing that burgers and dogs are the last things on her mind.
It’s also true, as Call, a meteorologist and storm chaser, notes, living in the devastating aftermath of a hurricane is simply hard to fathom. Parts of Florida are still soaking wet from Helen, and it’s unclear how many days or even weeks Milton will leave swathes of the state without power. Milton is going to push Florida in a way that TikTok can’t capture.
“Rebuilding from a hurricane is measured in years,” Call says.
This is the part we don’t see and it won’t get millions of views.
