Just after 11 p.m. Wednesday night, as Hurricane Milton’s high winds and heavy rains were lashing Lakeland, Amy Welsh, 40, was desperately trying to get to her father’s home in Melody Acres Mobile Home Park off New Tampa Highway.
His west Lakeland home is directly behind hers, but the normally languid creek that runs alongside the mobile home park was now a rising torrent, swallowing roadways, yards and cars.
Her father, 61-year-old Joseph Murray, had terminal cancer and had been placed under hospice care in May. He refused to go to a shelter.
“There’s no way I could carry my dad out,” Welsh said. “I was so worried about my dad being stuck.”
Just as frightening, smoke was coming out of an appliance, but the switch to shut off the power was under water.
The first time I called, the house was taking on water and I asked if they could rescue my dad; I needed someone to help lift him to carry him out
amy wElsh
As hurricane-force winds howled, she and a friend walked into the flood waters, but couldn’t reach her Dad’s door. Nor could they get back to their house.
At 11:19, she called 9-1-1, begging for help.
“The first time I called, the house was taking on water and I asked if they could rescue my dad; I needed someone to help lift him to carry him out,” Welsh said, explaining that he had neuropathy and had lost mobility in his legs and had started to lose the use of his arms.
But it was the height of the storm and first responders were going out only for life-or-death emergencies.
She said she was told the call was not one of those priorities and they would have to wait until the storm cleared.
She and her friend, Matthew Snyder, rode out the storm sitting atop a porch railing of a nearby home, as the water continued to rise and the wind blew the cold rain sideways.
In the morning, just after dawn, she still couldn’t get to her father. She asked strangers to go in with Matthew to get her father and carry him to safety.
They found him dead inside his bedroom.
“He said he’s not wet so I wonder if it’s just the stress of knowing he’s going to drown,” Welsh said, crying, as she sat on the bridge over the still roiling creek, held by Snyder.
Lakeland Police spokeswoman Stephanie Kerr was driving in the area and had just stopped as Welsh walked up, crying on the phone as she told someone of her father’s death. Kerr called for Polk County Sheriff’s deputies to come.
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PCSO, fire rescue, dive and search team, and traffic and homicide units all showed up to assist with body recovery rescue.
“I would like to say they handled everything with due diligence,” Welsh said. “They treated my father with dignity and respect, blocking traffic and stopping passersby from taking video and pictures of him on his way to transport to final services arrangements.”
Video – The creek by the mobile home park this morning:
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