Stories about the wild and oftentimes bizarre adventures of “Florida Man” have become increasingly common over the years, so much so that the man, the myth, and the undeniable legend have all assumed a sort of cult-like status and following in the eyes of many Americans despite his occasional serious wrongdoings.
I mean the internationally known mystery dude even has a Twitter account, with the pinned story as of this writing being about one Florida Man, who I must say bears more than a passing resemblance to RedState’s own notorious Florida Man Brad Slager, proudly showing off his one-of-a-kind leaf-blower-powered “vehicle”:
Florida Man Turns Heads with Leaf Blower-Powered Vehicle pic.twitter.com/gBIKRhKqSv
— Florida Man (@FloridaMan__) October 16, 2020
Majorly impressive.
Although the current situation in the Sunshine State is quite serious, with Hurricane Idalia making landfall early Wednesday morning as a devastating Category 3 storm, we thought that maybe a little humor break would be both timely and appropriate in order to help calm frayed nerves and soothe tensions.
To help do that, we turn to a CNN segment from earlier in the day Wednesday where, during a live “This Morning” broadcast on Idalia, two determined Floridians casually floated behind meteorologist Derek Van Dam in an inflatable, camo-colored rubber duck-type floating device as he was reporting on flood waters along Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa.
It didn’t take long for Van Dam to catch sight of the two of them (they may have even bumped him slightly at one point as the water appeared to be quite choppy) and to try to give them a push on to their destination in the process:
“So, we’re going step away from the seriousness of this storm for just one second, you’ve got to bear with me. This is something you don’t see every day. Guys, guys, what are you doing? Literally – this is a very new way to beat rush hour traffic on Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa. These guys are kayaking down this major thoroughfare, Tampa, over my shoulder here. I mean, look at that. I don’t want to minimize the serious nature of the storm, but this is what people are dealing with.”
Watch:
Florida Man strikes again pic.twitter.com/uBcKuVy1i4
— Brendon Leslie (@BrendonLeslie) August 30, 2023
Later in the segment (which was not seen in the clip above), Van Dam updated viewers on what the “rubber ducky” was doing.
“…he is busy doing laps on Bayshore Boulevard.”
Van Dam continued to take it all in stride when he caught the video on the Twitter machine later:
#Rubberduck – file this one under “things I never thought I’d say on live tv!”@CNNPR @CNN
— Derek Van Dam (@VanDamCNN) August 30, 2023
While the storm is indeed serious and people should absolutely heed warnings so they can better keep themselves and their loved ones safe, sometimes Florida Man is just gonna go full-blown Florida Man, and this was definitely one of those instances where the FM simply could not and would not be denied his day in the spotlight, er, sunlight.
Stay safe out there, y’all! And please keep those who were impacted in your thoughts and prayers.
Related –>> Leadership: Watch as Ron DeSantis Smoothly Rejects Reporter’s Attempt at Politicizing Hurricane Idalia
