A woman had to rush through her late husband's final wishes before Hurricane Ian pounded Florida as she feared she might not have a home to come back to.
Nancy Chulla, 72, whose 1963 mobile home lies along the Category 4 storm's path, broke down as she left the home she had shared with her husband Bob since 1999.
Bob died from cancer in May and had asked for his cremated remains to be released into the water outside their home.
She had initially planned to spread the ashes on October 15, Bob's birthday, but the date was moved forward as the hurricane is set to make landfall in Tampa.
Nancy fetched Bob's ashes from their tumble dryer - an appliance she'd heard was hurricane-proof - before heading to the end of her dock to scatter his remains.
Sitting on the pier - where her husband would watch dolphins and manatees dart in and out of the water - she poured his ashes into the sea.
"It was what he had wanted," she told the New York Times.
"He loved being here."
Bob - who was 80 when he died - worked at a cemetery after a career at General Motor.
The couple owned six mobile homes on the site, where they had lived since 1999.
Nancy said her beloved hubby even built a beach for her there.
The 72-year-old plans to evacuate but return once the storm dies down.
“People say, ‘Are you sure you want to go back?’ and I say even if it’s a tent or a motor home,” she said.
“I have my own beach. I don’t want to give it up.”
The intense twister is now lashing the state's southern tip with tropical storm-force winds hours before it was forecast to make US landfall.
Ian, which pummelled Cuba on Tuesday as a Category 3 storm - leaving the entire nation without power and driving residents to shelters to wait out the raging weather.
As it reached Florida this morning (GMT) near Tampa, Ian had strengthened into an "extremely dangerous" and "life-threatening" Category 4 storm front.
A Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale carries steady winds of up to 130miles per hour (209kmph).
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami warned that Ian would also unleash pounding surf, life-threatening coastal flooding and more than a foot of rain in some areas, as authorities urged more than 2.5million residents to evacuate their homes for higher ground.
Shocking videos and images have been pouring in from across the state as residents rush to clear supermarket shelves for supplies and evacuate their flooded homes.
In one terrifying clip, Key West resident Dylon Estevez wades through waist-deep water while cradling his shaking pet pooch in his arms.
Business have been shuttered in preparation and court cases have been put on hold in anticipation of the powerful hurricane.
The sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz - who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder in the Valentine's Day 2018 shooting - has been pushed back three days as the storm is expected to make landfall.
