Former Floridians living in Colorado watch as Hurricane Milton makes landfall

As Milton took a big swing in the middle of the Florida Peninsula Wednesday night, people in Colorado watched and worried. Among them, Kim Vadas. Vadas was born in Tampa and spent many years there, including college.

"I'm very worried I have a lot of friends and family and colleagues down there," she said. Some of her relatives and friends have evacuated, others are staying.

Vadas has been reaching out since the weekend to find out what people are doing. She sent questions through social media, via text and phone calls and email.

"Are you guys planning to evacuate? What are you doing? Where are you going?" she asked. "It is the most hopeless, helpless feeling in the world being thousands of miles away from them and not able to really do anything," she explained.

The storm is bashing its way across Florida, spinning off tornadoes and pushing a storm surge of 9 to 13 feet. Flooding is nearly always the biggest killer in a hurricane. It caused nearly all of the loss of life in Hurricane Helene and her aftermath.

"It's worse than a bad dream. It really is the things of nightmares," said Vadas, who said she moved away from Tampa partially because she was so weary of hurricanes.

Rapidly Wednesday night the number of utility customers without power rose to 1.5 million, then 2 million. Emergency officials were planning for extensive rescues. Colorado's Task Force One expanded to 80 members in hurricane-affected areas. The storm moving quickly, was on a course to head back out into the Atlantic.

Vadas said she would be trying to help anyone she knew from a distance if she could.

"They have my number, they know they can call me. They know they can text me and I know I'll be up late tonight watching."