Anywhere to go’ – diehards insist on weathering storm

But many are staying, even boasting about surviving Camille, Andrew, Katrina and other storms.

“Number one, I don’t have anywhere to go,” said Mr Roberts, a lawyer. “And I’m on the 17th floor. I have security shutters, so I should be quite safe here.”

Mandatory evacuation orders apply to all barrier islands around South Florida, including Redington Shores, where Mr Roberts’ condo complex towers over a narrow reach of sand. The entire Florida Keys were supposed to be emptied and firefighters went door to door in mobile home parks, urging residents to get out.

People who refused to evacuate were not being arrested, but were told they would not be rescued once the storm arrived.

“You can call, but we’re not coming,” Pinellas sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

Carol Walterson Stroud believed Irma would turn elsewhere at first. Then, she did not evacuate Key West because she is a nervous wreck driving alone and her husband, “a hardheaded conch”, would not leave.

So as Irma’s winds and rain began to lash Florida’s southernmost city, she took cover in a borrowed apartment in the senior citizens’ centre where her husband Tim works, along with their granddaughter Sierra Costello, and dog Rocky.

Her daughter, Breanna Vaughn, refused to leave her animals in her home a few blocks away.

“I’m afraid,” Stroud acknowledged. “Tonight, I’m sweating. Tonight, I’m scared to death.”

Many poor people had few options. People with more resources didn’t want to stay in crowded sheltrs, or risk driving hundreds of miles north.