Speaking to the Otago Daily Times while sheltering in her closet in Tampa, Florida, Kelsey Roemhildt described what it was like being in the middle of what United States President Joe Biden called "the storm of the century".
Ms Roemhildt, who grew up in Invercargill and Gore, said she and her husband Daniel lived 20 minutes out of Tampa City and lost power to their home about 7pm local time yesterday.
"You go outside and you stand out in that for a second and you’re just drenched.
"The sky is just lit up with blue and pink from the transformers blowing up outside."
As winds of up to 200kmh were swirling outside, she and her husband decided to spend their night "tucked up" in their bedroom closet.
"We got a notification on our phones that we should get into an area where there’s no windows.
"Thankfully, our master bedroom, the closet is big enough to fit two single beds."
The storm hit the Tampa Bay area, a major population centre that is home to more than 3.2 million people.
Many residents have boarded up their homes.
However, Ms Roemhildt said they had been unable to do so.
Upon reaching the hardware store to get plywood, they discovered there was not much left and the line to get it was at least 100 people long.
All the water, toilet paper, bread, canned goods and most other foods had been bought as people were worried about a potential multiple-day power outage, she said.
Ms Roemhildt moved to Tampa more than two years ago and experienced Hurricane Ian shortly after.
"[Ian] was nothing compared to this. This is frightening because it’s so close — with Ian, at least we knew it was further away and was not as powerful as this."
She estimated that half of the neighbourhood she lived in had been evacuated.
"It’s like there should be tumbleweeds.
"A lot of people obviously were very scared here ... they just got out of town."
Mr Roemhildt described their experience of the hurricane as "just like camping".
"Our house is kind of on a hill, so we’re not too worried about flooding. Our windows are not facing the direction the wind is blowing, we’re not too concerned about that," he said.
Last month, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida at category 4.
Helene was 250km from their home, Ms Roemhildt said.
"That one was not very destructive for us in Tampa. We did lose power for 8 hours."
