Buccaneers' QB Tom Brady Feels Impact of Hurricane, Loses Jetskis

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has dealt with a lot over his 20 years in the NFL. But this week brought something that the veteran quarterback hadn’t faced before: A hurricane.

Hurricane Eta, which eventually weakened into a tropical storm before making landfall, slammed into the west coast of Florida bringing high winds and buckets of rain on Wednesday. Brady said he was directly impacted by the storm.

“The hurricane – that was a trip last night for me,” Brady said Thursday. ‘I had a dock that broke [and] floated away. I had these jet skis on it. I saw those things sitting out in the middle of the bay and I was going, ‘Wow, that’s pretty surreal.’ I was kind of laughing like, ‘Well, you’ll get the jet skis back. A lot of people are dealing with a lot worse than that.’ Just waking up and seeing what kind of happened to the yard – it got pretty messed up.”

Brady was reportedly closing on his own Clearwater-area mansion last month, after staying in former New York Yankees second basemen Derek Jeter's home since signing with the Bucs. Pictures via TMZ show a dock just behind the home, unlike Jeter's, signaling that Brady has indeed settled into his own place.

Brady said he was fortunate enough to find his jet skis and bring them back to shore.

“They were about 300 yards away at someone else’s house,” Brady said. “I got a bunch of messages from people that were like, ‘Hey man, are your jet skis [missing?]” They floated down and found their way into someone else’s dock – they got lodged. I was very lucky.”

As someone who has lived in the Boston area for most of his career, Brady explained he had some idea of what to expect for the hurricane, but admitted he would be worried if a stronger storm came through Florida.

“I’d be really nervous if a big one hit,” Brady said. “It happened pretty quick. I thought you had time to prepare for these things, but apparently, you don’t. They’re just kind of on you and then you’ve got to deal with it.”

While Eta was only a Category 1 hurricane off the coast of Florida, it was the 28th storm of this year’s hurricane season, which tied for most named storms in a season. For Brady, it was a learning experience.

“We pushed the schedule back today,” Brady said about the Buccaneers practice. “Fortunately, everyone made it in safe and sound. Good lesson learned for someone who has been in the Northeast for a long time.”