Social media influencer says she’s dedicated to “making sure the maximum number of people possible” read her books, even if that means ignoring evacuation orders during a devastating Hurricane.
On Wednesday, October 9, the author took to social media to announce that she would not be leaving her beachfront home in Sarasota, Florida amid dire Hurricane Milton warnings.
“I’m not evacuating for the hurricane,” Calloway, 32, posted on X on Tuesday, October 8. “I live in Sarasota, on the beach, in evacuation zone A. For more great advice, buy my second book! It’s called Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway’s Guide to Life. It’s about to come out if I survive! It’s an advice book 😉 Cute!!!!! <3.”
In an interview with People, Calloway elaborated on why she decided to ignore evacuation orders and shelter-in-place.
“I don’t know who started the rumor that I live on the ground floor, but that is not true,” she told the publication on Wednesday, October 9. “The building’s never flooded before.”
In another interview with the Intelligencer, Calloway went on to explain that in 2022, when Hurricane Ian hit Florida, she experienced a “traumatic” evacuation that also influenced her decision to stay.
“It was three days, no water, no electricity, no AC, which is a huge f—— problem in Florida in the late summer, even early fall,” she said. “We were evacuated by boat by the U.S. military. Her whole neighborhood flooded. They drove one of those Lana Del Rey-husband fan boats down what was formerly known as her street.
“The scariest part was not our dwindling food supply or the insects … the scariest part, which was at night, we’d hear gunshots,” she continued. “I still don’t know if it was just drunk Floridians exercising their Second Amendment rights on a homemade shooting range in their backyard to pass the time, or if it was something more sinister.”
Calloway told both publications she also planned on posting content during Hurricane Milton’s landfall — and has since made good on that promise, posting links to her new book, retweeting her news interviews, and sharing quips about her decision to stay.
“I have champagne and four generations of Floridians in my veins,” she posted on X. It’lll be fine.”
In another X post, she wrote, “Where there’s a Callowill, there’s a Calloway.”
“I think when it comes to content, I think I’ll leave it to the experts and the activists to share the resources that people turn to them for,” the influencer told People. “And I think on my platforms, I will share what people turn to me for, which is dark humor and entertainment and chaos and art.”
She added: “Now that I’m here, now that I’m sheltering in place and hunkering down, I believe that I should make the most entertaining content possible, which has always been in service of making sure the maximum number of people possible read my books.”
In one post shared on her Instagram Stories, Calloway joked, “If I actually die in this storm, my books are going to go WAY UP in price. Order now.”
Overnight, Calloway shared footage of the “eye of the storm” on her various social media platforms, along with an update, writing that “a 60-year-old man named Todd shot better content of this storm than I did. Brb need to go check on some old ladies on the upper floors.”
On Thursday, October 10, Calloway shared another, more succinct update, posting, “I lived bitch” along with a selfie of the influencer holding her cat.
