Parents, 3-Day-Old Baby Lived in Walmart Parking Lot After Hurricane Michael

The mom and dad had their three other children ride out the storm with relatives.

Hurricane Michael
Walmart will be closed on Thanksgiving Day this year. (Alex Edelman / AFP/Getty Images)
AFP/Getty Images

After their home was devastated by Hurricane Michael, a Florida Panhandle couple sought shelter for their 3-day-old son, Luke, in the parking lot of their local Walmart.

Luke’s parents, Wilmer Capps and Lorrainda Smith, were discharged with him from the hospital just three days after he was born but returning to their mosquito-ravaged, waterlogged home was not an option.

“I had no choice, (Luke) would have had a heatstroke,” Capps told the Associated Press. “When he started acting like he was getting sick from the heat and wouldn’t eat, that’s when we went to Walmart. There was kind of a breeze there, there was no bugs biting us. I said ‘We’re all right now.’”

With their three other children staying with relatives, the Panama City pair’s only concern was putting a roof over their new baby’s head. Fortunately, they didn’t reside at the local big box store’s lot for long. The family was introduced to a nearby hotel by a Walmart security guard who knew it was donating rooms.

 

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