A student from the University of Tampa is back home with her family and friends in Connecticut before Hurricane Milton made landfall in the area.
Sophomore Sophia Mastriano says it's her third time evacuating campus due to hurricanes, but this time was different. She was a little lucky.
"We decided to come home just for a weekend," said Mastriano, of North Haven.
She and her roommates happened to book a last-minute trip to Connecticut last weekend. They came in on Friday and their plan was to head back to school on Sunday.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
But with Hurricane Milton threatening Florida — those plans changed.
"We found out on Saturday that classes were cancelled, and we had to stay," said Mastriano.
The school has been updating students for the last several days. The last email came in Tuesday afternoon, and students were told campus would be closed through Friday.
Local
"We're here with the just a backpack of clothes, and that's just what we're going to work with for a week," said Mastriano.
It's the second time Mastriano had to evacuate campus this year. Two weeks ago, she had to scramble to find a way home before Hurricane Helene hit.
"It's pretty much just kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. We find out through our school that we have to pack and leave. We pretty much have to find a flight or a family friend," said Mastriano.
She also had to evacuate campus last year, just one day after she moved in during her freshman year.
"That was probably the scariest -- like I was not prepared," said Carissa Mastriano, Sophia's mother. "We left her on a Sunday last year, and Monday they had to evacuate. And you know, you don't know anybody."
But this year, her daughter just happened to be home safe with her friends and family.
"We're obviously grateful that they're all here. You know, we're thinking about everything that they have there in Tampa. All of the people that they met — even their professors, I mean they live there," Carissa said.
"It is very scary to see what's going to happen to our campus. What's going to happen to our area surrounding our campus, which we spend so much time in and just all the people that we've got to know who live in the area," said Mastriano.
