Pirate City expected to take direct hit from Hurricane Milton; area will act as hub for police

The home of Pirates spring training, Bradenton, Florida, is preparing for a direct hit from Hurricane Milton.

That’s why the team evacuated employees and canceled a minor league camp this week. This afternoon, law enforcement moved into Pirates City.

“We do not have players or coaches at Pirate City right now. Pirate City, along with our relationship with the city of Bradenton, becomes an area where the city uses the for their police officers to stay because all their officers have to stay within the city during an emergency situation like this,” said Jeff Podobnick, Pirates VP of Floridan & Dominican operations.

Podobnick said the area was ready to go, because they never undid preparations from Hurricane Helene.

“This is my third hurricane that I’ve been through since I’ve been back down in Florida. You know, this one, this one’s going to be a, they’re predicting to be a direct hit,” he said. “We already had our preparations in place, and quite honestly, we never undid them from Helene, because we knew that there was another storm coming.”

Podobnick says he’s had support from team officials located in Pittsburgh.

“Now, a lot of folks you know, from Pittsburgh, obviously my boss, Dennis... [have] been reaching out to me quite a bit, basically checking in on us and our president, Travis Williams, you know, checking in. So it’s great to hear from them, and just to kind of give them an update of where we are.” he said.

Although he’s weathered hurricane’s before, Podobnick says Milton is making him nervous.

“So we’re going to hunker down and hope, hope we fare it well,” he said.

Milton is expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening.

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