A few UFC fighters are not leaving Florida despite the threat that Hurricane Irma represents, including a pair of fighters scheduled to compete next week in Pittsburgh.
American Top Team talents Thiago Alves and Hector Lombard meet Mike Perry and Anthony Smith, respectively, at the UFC Fight Night 116 card in Pennsylvania on Sept. 16, and posted on social media that they wouldn’t leave home as some of the Floridians evacuate.
“(The hurricane) is going west, so things are getting better,” Alves told MMA Fighting. “We'll wait and see.”
“I'll stay with the family here,” he added. “When it’s over, I’ll go to war.”
Alves, who became a father in 2016, says that his house is not in a risky area in Florida.
“I have built in shutters at home and I have a generator as well for when the power goes down, and plenty of fuel to use,” Alves said. “It's just wait and see. We have lots of water and food. We will just wait."
Hurricane Irma is expected to hit the Florida Keys, in the southernmost part of the state, on Sunday morning. It is a Category 5 storm, the most severe of the categories.
On Friday morning, the National Hurricane Center warned the storm as “extremely dangerous” with sustained winds up to 155 mph, strong enough to uproot trees and rip off the roofs of houses. Hurricane Irma has already left destruction in its wake in the Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in St. Martin, Barbuda and Puerto Rico.