The Hurricane Holdouts Who Never Leave Now Face a ‘Monster’ Storm

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AROLINA BEACH, N.C. — Skippy Winner, an 84-year-old retired sea captain, has stayed put for every storm here since Hurricane Hazel leveled much of this barrier island town in 1954. He rattled off those storms gone by: Donna, Diana, Hugo, Fran, Floyd and too many nor’easters to count. “I’m gonna be just fine, so let ’er blow,” Mr. Winner said on Wednesday as he prepared to remain inside his cramped living room, which was bathed in the silver light of the TV screen. The Weather Channel played on mute. He was shirtless, with a camouflage ball cap, wrinkled khaki shorts and a medical alert necklace he knows might not do him much good. There is a stubborn breed of hurricane holdouts who routinely aggravate and ignore emergency officials as they beg coastal residents to pack up and leave as storms approach. Every hurricane, from Katrina to Ike to Harvey, has had its share — many of them cranky, independent-minded contrarians like David Carl (Skippy) Winner Jr., the latest in a long line of Carolina Beach seamen. The authorities, who have already spent days trying to warn people in Hurricane Florence’s path of the potential severity of the huge Category 2 storm, issued some of their most strident pleas yet on Wednesday for people to get out of harm’s way.

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In his living room, Mr. Winner waved a sunburned arm in disgust. He regards certain town officials with the same contempt he holds for TV weathermen. “Hell, it’s the ones who don’t know what they’re doing that cause the problems,” he said of holdouts. “People like me and some of these other old-timers know what the hell we’re doing.” Mr. Winner learned to ride out a hurricane from his grandfather and his father, who built the home in Carolina Beach in the late 1940s as a hurricane redoubt. On Wednesday, his comfortable recliner was raised and ready.

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