Regis Prograis relives his harrowing tale of survival in the wake of Hurricane Milton

Hurricane Milton is currently wreacking havoc in Florida.

Over three million homes and businesses are without power, countless people have been injured and two people have lost their lives.

The hurricane, which was at the height of its destruction was a Category 5 storm, is now listed as a Category 1 but is still causing damage with heavy rain, wind speed hitting 90mph and tornados bashing up Florida.

Former two-time junior welterweight titlist Regis Prograis knows all too well the trail of devastation that such a natural disaster can cause, having lived through the Hurricane Katrina atrocity in 2005.

“The biggest thing you can do is pray for them people,” Prograis told The Ring. “To be displaced and to lose your home is a terrible thing to go through.

“I’m hearing a lot of horror story’s that people can’t even leave because there’s no gas and traffic is terrible.”

Prograis, who along with his family moved 16 times in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which accounted for a billion dollars worth of damage in in the region, knows all to well that the implications of what happens are mind-blowing.

“If I had any advice for them, it would be to make the best out of it because if anything happens like Hurricane Katrina happens that’s a terrible situation,” he said. “When we got displaced, when I was 16, when Hurricane Katrina hit, I never went back to that lifestyle.

“Most people can’t even fathom. You’re living a certain life, and that life gets snatched away in the blink of an eye and that’s kind of what happened to us. That’s what happened to not just me but the whole city of New Orleans, your whole life is gone and you will never ever comeback to that lifestyle.”

Once it was possible Prograis and his family they returned to their home in a bid to recover what they could.

“My grandma and mom broke down crying because our houses were destroyed,” he recalled. “My grandma had 13 feet of water; we had eight feet of water. In my grandma’s house, everything was gone. It’s not about material things; it’s pictures and memories. All that was gone. In our house, it was eight feet, so most things were gone but we could salvage some picture albums that was high up, and clothes.

“It was harder on my family, the adults that had houses. For me, it was just a new start. Of course my life changed; everything you know is gone. It’s not like you have a fire in your house and you have to move to another part of town and still go to the same school. You have to move everything.”

The now 35-year-old, who has a big fight coming up with Jack Catterall, in Manchester, England,  on October 26, hopes Mother Nature is more merciful on the people of Florida than they were on the people of Louisiana.

“Sometimes with those storms the hurricane makes a slight turn and it misses, if we can get that will be a good thing, or it slows down or weakens and you might not get the whole thing,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing to go through.”

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