Tampa Bay, Florida - In a wild social media video, one man attempted to evade the flooding of Hurricane Helene by boarding a kayak in his living room.

On Thursday, the storm hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane and caught many residents unprepared.

TikToker Matthew Heller reported that the storm surge took him completely by surprise in his home, as it "came out of nowhere."

In a video shared on the social media platform, he documented the rising water and showed how he acted quickly by grabbing a kayak and sitting in it to find shelter from the encroaching water in his house.

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"The kayak was my backup plan in case it got too hairy so we could get out safely," Heller told CNN.

He estimated that the water rose to about four feet as it flowed into his house – the most flooding he had ever experienced.

In another video, he showed the extent of the flooding as dirty water poured into the house through his garage when he opened the door.

After closing the garage door again, Heller demonstrated how the flood entered the house through cracks in the door frame and through a back room that looked out onto a large body of water.

Authorities had previously warned that storm surges could reach heights of 5 to 8 feet. Helene left millions of people without power and claimed the lives of more than 40 people in the US.