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Shoreline Residents Advise Families Down South To Evacuate Before Hurricane Florence

Families living on the Connecticut shoreline know all too well the devastation that can be caused by storms like Hurricane Florence.

Communities along the coast felt the back-to-back punches from Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012.

“Milford on the beach is even more beautiful,” said Victoria Mellah, who moved into a beach home the same year Sandy damaged thousands of homes on the shoreline. “It took quite a toll on this community and rehab afterwards took a long time.”

Mellah said she made sure to get out before the storm.

“Everyone in the community was warned ahead of time,” she told NBC Connecticut.

She evacuated before she said there was four feet of flooding in her Cooper Avenue home.

“Bed had floated against the door,” Mellah said, “everything was just black with muck.”

A year earlier Hurricane Irene hit the Connecticut coast in August 2011.

“Some people decided to ride out the first storm in general because they’ve lived along the shoreline their whole lives, never seen things come in so devastating,” Milford Fire Battalion Chief Anthony Fabrizi said. “Unfortunately some people managed to get trapped and we needed to rescue them.”

When Sandy arrived in late October 2012, “a lot of residents realized I’m not gonna do that again,” Fabrizi said.

Obeying evacuation orders can be a matter of life or death for residents and first responders, Fabrizi said.

“We will risk a lot to save a lot,” Fabrizi said, “however, there does become a cutoff point where putting our personnel in almost certain danger of losing their lives becomes unacceptable.”

With Hurricane Florence approaching the Carolinas, Mellah has a message for people living in the project path of the powerful storm.

“Don’t be a hero,” she said. “It’s brick and mortar. Don’t have someone else risk their life as first responders to come get you because you wanted to save brick and mortar, take what you can and evacuate is my biggest advice.”

The storm surge in Milford during Irene and Sandy was between four and eight feet, Fabrizi said. NBC Connecticut's meteorologists are forecasting the storm surge down south during Hurricane Florence could be up to 20 feet.

As the hurricane gets closer to making landfall, Fabrizi said he is thinking about a former college and his family.

“We have a retired firefighter from this department who lives right in the Charleston area as a matter of fact,” he said, “concerned for their wellbeing.”

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