Caroline Calloway Speaks Out Following Hurricane Milton Backlash: 'I Know the Reasons I Decided to Stay' (Exclusive)

The influencer, 32, doubles down on her plans to remain at her beachfront Florida home during Hurricane Milton, despite living in a 'mandatory evacuation' zone

Influencer Caroline Calloway made headlines when she shared her plans to stay in her beachfront home in Saratoga, Fl. amid Hurricane Milton warnings. In an Instagram Stories post shared on Tuesday, Oct. 8, Calloway even noted that her area was deemed a "mandatory evacuation zone."

Fans and followers flooded social media to express concerns for Calloway's safety, but the Scammer author, 32, tells PEOPLE that she has no intention of changing her plans to stay put. In fact, she claims that her online community has less reason to be worried than they may think.

"I don't know who started the rumor that I live on the ground floor, but that is not true. I live three stories up in a building with hurricane grade windows and three-foot thick concrete walls," says Calloway, adding that even the highest estimated storm surges at 15 to 20 feet high would be unlikely to reach the third story of her complex: "The building's never flooded before," she adds.

In her initial Instagram Stories, Calloway said her last hurricane evacuation experience was "very traumatic," hence her current hesitance to follow National Weather Service orders. In 2022, she fled to her mother's home further inland during Hurricane Ian, but she says she "ended up being worse off."

"I went to a private home that was one story with thinner walls and more easily disrupted roof," the creator continues. She says they went three days without water or electricity, and when they eventually ran low on food, the U.S. military had to rescue them. During the evenings, Calloway says she and her mom heard gunshots.

Related: Caroline Calloway 'Doesn't Want to Evacuate' Florida Home Amid Hurricane Milton, Despite Living in Mandatory Evacuation Zone

"To this day, I still don't know if it was just drunk Floridians exercising their Second Amendment right on a homemade shooting range in their backyard, or if it was looting or something more sinister," she recalls. "Especially when you know you can't call the police, there's really no civil infrastructure in place. It was very scary."

As Calloway already mentioned on social media, there's also the fact that she can't drive, and the airports are closed. But she adds another reason to the mix: the writer wants to be available to help her elderly neighbors, many of whom were friends with her grandmother, who lived in the building before Calloway.

"There are a few more sort of able-bodied young people who are staying to help, but I'm definitely the youngest and the most able-bodied among them," she tells PEOPLE. "Even with my missing kneecaps." (Calloway says her kneecaps were surgically removed during childhood: "My first claim to fame was being the youngest person in the history of mankind to have a double patellectomy," she explains.)

Between the well-being of her elderly neighbors, her inability to transport herself anywhere and the relative safety of her building compared to her mother's, Calloway maintains that staying is the right move for her.

"One of those three reasons alone wouldn't have been enough to sway me, maybe not even two. But all three combined really made me want to decide to stay," she says, noting that her mom has decided to come take shelter at Calloway's instead of staying in the place where they were trapped during Hurricane Ian.

Related: Hurricane Milton Makes Landfall in Florida Nearly 2 Weeks After Helene: Live Updates

But does she actually think she's going to die, as she stated at the beginning of her Instagram Stories post? No, and she thinks it's "very annoying but expected the way that that quote has been so taken out of context."

Calloway elaborates, "I said that as the opening sentence in my Instagram Story, which I then walked back over the next few minutes, the exact same way in my writing I would open with a punchy lede and then sort of flesh out with more nuance the concept in the following paragraphs."

However, the viral reaction to Calloway's Instagram Stories post hasn't actually deterred her from making more content as the hurricane gets closer and closer to landfall and eventually reaches the western coast of Florida, where it is expected to have disastrous — and potentially fatal — consequences.

She's actually ramping up to post more, though she's not advising people to follow her chosen safety protocol. Calloway is ready to offer up her online personality in this situation, but she won't pretend to be an expert on storm preparation. "I only give advice on the things that I excel at, and I really don't try to be anything that I'm not," she says.

"I think when it comes to content, I think I'll leave it to the experts and the activists to share the resources that people turn to them for. And I think on my platforms, I will share what people turn to me for, which is dark humor and entertainment and chaos and art," Calloway tells PEOPLE.

Related: Why Some Floridians Feel They Can't Evacuate Ahead of Hurricane Milton Despite Warnings Like 'You're Going to Die'

She then connects her current state with a recent project: her second book, Elizabeth Wurtzel and Caroline Calloway’s Guide to Life.

"I feel very confident telling people about how to make their lovers become obsessed with them, or how to finish a book no one believes you'll ever finish and make it really good, or how to deal with friendship betrayals or being canceled online, or even down to what sort of brand of lip liner I like best," the author says. "At nowhere in this book do I talk about financial planning or the conflict in Gaza. I stay in my goddamn lane."

And to those who wonder if she's using Hurricane Milton to promote her latest publication — "Listen, they're not entirely wrong," Calloway admits. "Because I am promoting my book right now. So it's like, if they really want to believe that I'm so committed to the bit that I die for it, that's not my problem. They can think what they want. I know the reasons I decided to stay."

She continues, "Now that I'm here, now that I'm sheltering in place and hunkering down, I believe that I should make the most entertaining content possible, which has always been in service of making sure the maximum number of people possible read my books."

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