Julian Aguilera is back home in Florida after spending one week in Texas.
"We arrived and the hurricane was there," he told us recently.
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The Polk County man was visiting sick family members when, hours after Hurricane Harvey's landfall Friday, Aguilera arrived Saturday only to find himself stranded.
"He [cousin] said, look everything is closed. We cannot get to you. You never should have come here. I said, well, I'm here," he said.
The father of three eventually made it to a hotel that night. The next day he was back in the floods and chaos of Hurricane Harvey's aftermath.
"I said I'm going back to Florida so I get to the airport and guess what, it was cancelled. I couldn't leave. Now I'm stuck in Florida," he said.
Pictures he captured show a snapshot of what Aguilera says he witnessed over the course of the weeks in the Lone Star state.
"One of my cousins, he lost his cars, trucks. They lost everything," he said.
Aguilera made it back to Florida Friday night only to hear about Hurricane Irma churning in the Atlantic.
"First thing I hear my wife say is we got Irma coming! I said what? I don't think it's going to be as bad as the one I just left," he said.
While we can all hope that's true, after seeing life after Harvey in Texas, Aguilera has some advice for before Irma in Florida.
"Leave, if you can just leave. Don't try to be a hero."
