Vanilla Ice Rides Out Hurricane Matthew at Florida Home, Live-Tweets Storm

The "Ice Ice Baby" rapper gave social media updates on the storm from his home in Palm Beach County

What to Know

  • The rapper famous for the 1990 hit single "Ice Ice Baby" said on Twitter that he was riding out Hurricane Matthew.
  • "This hurricane is going to be serious, and it's coming right at me," he said in one tweet. "I am going to ride it out."
  • Palm Beach County, where Vanilla Ice lives, was under hurricane warnings Thursday and parts of Friday.

Vanilla Ice is back with a brand new invention: extreme weather live-tweeting.

The rapper famous for the 1990 hit single "Ice Ice Baby" said on Twitter Thursday that he rode out Hurricane Matthew at his home in Palm Beach. The onetime "Dancing With the Stars" contestant also used the opportunity to tweet out live updates on what he saw as the Category 4 storm swirled through The Sunshine State.

"This hurricane is going to be serious, and it's coming right at me," he said in one tweet before Matthew passed through. "I am going to ride it out."

The rapper, whose real name is Robert Matthew Van Winkle, later tweeted Friday morning that "It looks like a mess with debris and some flooding, but overall Palm Beach handled it very well."

Vanilla Ice's decision was in direct opposition to Florida Governor Rick Scott's call for residents to evacuate parts of the state. 

"We can rebuild homes, we can rebuild businesses … we can't rebuild a life," Scott said.

Officials in Palm Beach County also urged residents on barrier islands including Palm Beach to evacuate before Matthew hit.

It's the most powerful storm to threaten the U.S. Atlantic coast in more than a decade, and had already left more than 280 dead in its wake across the Caribbean. The National Weather Service warned it could have "potentially disastrous impacts for Florida."

The rapper has spent most of his life in South Florida. His home is about 72 miles north of Miami and was under hurricane warning from Thursday to Friday. Most of the storm was north of the county by  Friday morning.

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