(NewsNation) — Residents of Tampa, Florida, still wonder if a benevolent spirit guards them from storms, particularly after Hurricane Milton veered away from the city Wednesday and spared locals from an anticipated massive storm surge.

The hurricane made landfall in Siesta Key as a Category 3 storm Wednesday night. Tampa City Councilman Bill Carlson joined “Morning in America” on Thursday and reported that he and his Tampa Bay neighbors were relieved when Milton took a last-minute turn away from their hometown.

“It seems that every time a storm comes it either turns left or turns right, so we’re thankful that it turned right last night,” Carlson said.

The region didn’t escape the hurricane entirely. Carlson lives in a mandatory evacuation zone and spoke to NewsNation remotely from a hotel. Many people are still without power, and the city is asking residents not to venture out yet, cautioning about flooding and downed power lines.

Still, the damage could have been worse, Carlson said. On the heels of Hurricane Helene, he and others were bracing for a possible storm surge of up to 15 feet if they had been closer to the eye of the storm.

“We’re all praying that the high tide doesn’t cause a lot more flooding than we saw last night,” Carlson said. “We were lucky not to get the big storm surge that we got with Helene, so we’re all thankful for that today.”