Dad escapes Irma in duct taped bus to get to daughter in Wilmington

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina -- Before Hurricane Irma made landfall, hundreds of Florida residents did what they could to escape the destruction.

According to WWAY, one father escaped the storm with a homemade bus to make it to his daughter in Wilmington.

"Hurricane Irma, it's this little thing that happened recently, little storm, you may have heard about it was barreling down on the Keys, which is exactly where I lived," said Rock Solomon.

When Solomon learned Irma was headed straight for his home, he kicked it into high gear.

"The hurricane was coming and I realized kind of last minute that it was going to be wiped away and everything I worked on was going to be wiped away with it," said Solomon.

Solomon was working on a project - a bus he made himself.

So, when he heard about the storm, he decided to finally put it to use.

"So I had this crazy idea - What if we just slap it together as fast as humanly possible and get out of her," Solomon thought.

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He spent two days straight fixing it up so he could drive straight to Wilmington to see his daughter.

He made it about 900 miles out of his 1,000-mile journey before he was hit with some unforeseen circumstances.

"It ran like top (shape), perfectly, couldn't believe it," he said. "And then after the emergency was over, everything started to kind of go down hill... all the attention to detail you're supposed to have when you put something together that I didn't have time for began to kind of come back and haunt me."

The engine gave out less than 100 miles away from Wilmington and he does not think it will run again, but he said all he's looking forward to returning to his baby girl and singing with her.

"Baby I love you, I'm going to be home soon and then I'm going to sing 'Fly Me to the Moon' to you," Solomon said. "We're going to sing it together, you and

me. That's a promise."

Solomon said if he cannot get his bus operational, he will hop on the next Greyhound and will get to Wilmington on Thursday.