‘Girl you gotta move’: Woman tracks her dolphin in Florida during Hurricane Milton. Will she be OK?

As you’ve probably twigged by now, a storm is here. Hurricane Milton has already made landfall in Siesta Key, Florida. It left 2 million homes and businesses without power and is now heading away from the state as it moves eastward across Florida’s Atlantic coastline. This means that people are now, for the most part, safe. But the same can’t be said for Teri the dolphin.

Grace Merkell (grace.merkell) has gone viral after expressing her concern for the dolphin, which she tracks via the Fahlo app. In the six-second clip, which had SpongeBob music in the background, Merkell shared a screenshot from the app. It shows a Dolphin icon in the Atlantic Ocean near Florida and is accompanied by the following on-screen text: “My dolphin is in the middle of the path for Hurricane Milton. Put it in reverse Teri.”

What happened to Teri?

The clip has already amassed 499,300 views, with commenters sharing concern for their own tracked animals. “My Fahlo shark, Babu, is in the Gulf too!” one wrote. I’ve been watching my turtle all day!” another added. “Luckily, she’s up by New York again.” While a third commenter shared, “My dolphin Michael is in the same area. He is still showing signal, but I wish he would move out of the storm path!”

@grace.merkell went on my fahlo tracker today and… teri??? 😭😭🥲 girl you gotta move #hurricanemilton #fahlo #marinelifematters #teri ♬ sad SpongeBob music – michael

Furthermore, several other commenters repeated Merkell’s sentiments, writing: “Put it in reverse, Teri.” But sadly, it looks like the dolphin did not put it in reverse. This is because, in a follow-up video, Merkell shared a screenshot of the app with an error message.

“Your animal’s tracker is no longer sending signals,” the pop-up read. “This could be for a number of reasons, including the battery or simply falling off naturally over time, as tags are designed to last around a year.” Consequently, Merkell could no longer track Teri, who was replaced with another dolphin called Debbie.

Merkell didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via TikTok comment. Fahlo didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via email.

Hurricane Milton goes viral

As Hurricane Milton rocks the states, it should come as no surprise that several Floridians have gone viral with content related to the disaster. Brooklyn Karasack (@brooklynkarasack), for instance, went viral for a life hack that involved freezing a glass of water before adding a penny.

“If you come back and the penny is still on top… the power didn’t go out long enough for stuff to thaw,” she said. “If it’s halfway down, it wasn’t down extremely long.” But if the penny is at the bottom, your food is spoiled.

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