CROSSING paths with a hurricane was the last thing the Hunter's Elaina McClung expected when she arrived in Florida to compete at the world barefoot water skiing championships.
Dubbed the "storm of the century", Hurricane Milton has lashed Florida with 200km/h winds and heavy rainfall and was predicted to reach category 5 on the coast. It has whipped up deadly tornadoes, destroyed homes and knocked out power to more than three million customers.
Ms McClung, 23, is an elite Hunter Valley water skier and was selected to compete at the 2024 International Waterski and Wakeboard Federation World Barefoot Waterski Championships at Lake Auburndale, Florida from October 5 to 12.
Along with 80 other Australians from the barefoot waterski community, the competitors only had three days of competition in "rainy, cold wet weather and incredibly rough conditions" before the relentless Hurricane Milton dampened down on them.
"The path of Milton was proposed to come right over the top of us. But it was looking like at the time it would hit us, it would be a category 3," she said.
She said some families chose to drive four to nine hours north to escape the frightening mass, while those who chose to stay were billeted out of homes of American families.
Ms McClung stayed in an Airbnb with her parents which was made of solid brick and concrete. The owner assured them they'd be safe against fierce winds, having experienced tornados before.
"She told us it would be loud and sound like the roof is going to come off, but it won't. And updated us on the storm regularly," she said.
The raging thunderstorm began at 2pm on Wednesday afternoon, October 9 (Florida time) and Ms McClung received two tornado alert warnings on her phone.
"That was scary as Florida don't have basements. We also got two flash flood warnings at 10pm and 1am," she said.
She stayed up to date with the local news and storm watchers for updates before losing power when Milton hit landfall close to 10pm.
"We eventually fell asleep and woke up to the howling of Milton at 1am. It sounded like a freight train," she said.
Half-an-hour later a transformer in a neighbour's yard had exploded causing bright lights and quite a fright for Ms McClung and her parents who were in the eye of the storm.
"We saw incredibly bright red lights right at our front door and it was very frightening as we didn't know what this was and why it was so close to our door," she said.
Eventually the hurricane dropped to a category 2 and then 1, but Ms McClung said it was far too loud to sleep a wink.
By 7am on Thursday (Friday Australia), Ms McClung said the winds were still fresh but the calmest they had been all night.
"All of us are safe, it turned out a lot better than we anticipated. Everyone just mostly lost power, cell service and experienced fallen trees and there is debris everywhere," she said.
"Fortunately being inland we only had a small amount of damage in comparison to coastal areas."
She said the scariest part of the hurricane was being in the dark and the thoughts of what people were encountering.
"Hearing everything but not being able to see what was going on outside was very scary and the thought of strong wind gusts shattering all the glass windows and thoughts of trees falling into the houses," she said.
Ms McClung said only one round was completed of the world championships with officials now deciding whether the event will go ahead or not. She said her family will likely fly home to Australia in the coming days.
As of October 11, Hurricane Milton has since ploughed into the Atlantic Ocean after cutting a destructive path across Florida that spawned tornadoes, killed at least 10 people and left millions without power.
But the storm did not trigger the catastrophic surge of seawater that was feared.
