By Kiley Petracek
TAMPA, Fla.– Walking home from campus in Downtown Tampa alongside the Hillsborough River as it empties into the Tampa Bay, Terrence crossed paths with a man waving for help as his boat began to get swept under the Platt Street Bridge. The man was trying to capture the attention of other boaters, but nobody was stopping. Terrence decided to intervene after realizing he had seen the man a few times prior in the same area.
They dragged the boat to the same dock where the man would later sit through two hurricanes and where he became an overnight internet celebrity tending to the nickname “Lieutenant Dan.”
Terrence Concannon, otherwise known as “Tampa Terrence” on TikTok, grew a large following on TikTok over the 2024 hurricane season, partly because of his assistance with Lieutenant Dan, or Joe Malinowski.
“The Lieutenant Dan stuff is crazy, that whole story is. You could write like a hundred stories just on that,” Terrence said.
Terrence decided to nickname himself Tampa Terrence a few months into beginning his TikTok account. He wasn’t originally from the Tampa area, but moved from Massachusetts before his sophomore year at The University of Tampa, where he is currently a communication and media studies major.
“At first, I was just posting random videos,” Terrence said. He began posting consistently on TikTok in October 2023, but it was never something that was taken too seriously. “I never really put too much thought into them, I’d just film them on Snapchat and just kind of throw them up there. They seem to do pretty well.”
He grossed 30 thousand followers by the beginning of September 2024, nearly a year after starting. Some of his earlier videos include walking 6 miles home from the Tampa International Airport, unreasonable covers at local bars, or paddleboarding to class.
During his tenure at school in Tampa, he experienced Hurricane Ian in 2022, Hurricane Idalia in 2023, and most recently Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Terrence decided to stay at home during Hurricane Helene. “I told him right away, as soon as I heard,” he said. Terrence then made the first video of what was soon to be known as Dan. “He’s not leaving, baby! Don’t give up the ship!” he said.
The name Lieutenant Dan was inspired by Forrest Gump’s Lieutenant Dan Taylor: “Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies. He has one leg, the guy in the movie has no legs.”
After the first video succeeded 2 million views, Terrence posted two other videos about Dan on the day Hurricane Helene hit, accumulating another 12.7 million views combined. The comment section was filled with concern for Dan in any unrelated video Terrence posted after that.
Terrence soon began a GoFundMe under his friend’s bank account, so it didn’t appear that he was pocketing the money after encouragement from his TikTok viewers. Since Dan didn’t have access to his bank account due to an alleged invalid ID, the plan was to withdraw the gained funds as cash and hand it to Dan. The initial GoFundMe was set to raise $25,000 to help Dan buy a new boat and obtain a mode of transportation when on land.
As the GoFundMe verification period took five days, Hurricane Milton began picking up speed in the Gulf of Mexico, with Tampa being the central target. By the beginning of October, Terrence had accumulated 80 thousand TikTok followers.
“Dan is not leaving the boat for the hurricane. He is staying on that boat,” Terrence said in a TikTok video on Oct. 9. “There has been many attempts to get him off this boat. People have offered houses, hotel rooms, apartments. He will not leave.”
As the news of Hurricane Milton captured the nation’s attention, his comments were filled with concern from across the globe. “Now I won’t sleep….Dan is stressing me and [I] am in South Africa,” TikTok user @sihlembambo2 commented.
Terrence offered a hotel for Dan near the airport, but Dan was set on staying aboard his ship. Dan also gained attention for his stubbornness from locals such as Jane Castor — Tampa’s mayor — and the Tampa Police Department. Others were coming up to him and asking about Terrence’s GoFundMe.
“I haven’t profited anyway off Dan. … I want what’s best for him,” Terrence said in the same TikTok. “Honestly, all we can do is pray for him at this point.”
Terrence’s following extended to 8 hundred thousand within just a few short weeks.
“Everything was just blowing up [during Milton]. I could’ve posted a video of grass and be like, ‘Look at the grass moving!’” Terrence said in his announcer-style Massachusetts accent. “And people would be like, ‘Really? Oh, my God!’ It was insane. Anything was getting millions of views.”
During Hurricane Milton, the GoFundMe for Dan raised $45,000. GoFundMe got involved because it was growing so rapidly, and Dan’s bank account was not connected with the fundraiser, so they questioned where the funds were going, extending the verification process.
Brandon Gilchrist, otherwise known as CheckTheStar, got involved with Dan once Milton passed.
“He came in and basically took over him. … He took him away from the boat so I wasn’t able to talk to him,” Terrence said. “They started just calling out videos saying ‘Terrence is stealing all the money!’”
Terrence then reported that hateful messages were being sent to his home landline, his friends, and people were reaching out to his parents and sister to encourage him to do the right thing and donate the money to Dan.
“It was never supposed to get to where it is now. Joe has a bank account but no identification and no way to get in the bank,” Terrence explained in a TikTok two days after Milton hit. “I’ve gotten $7,000 in cash, which I will be giving to him today. The rest of the money will be sent to Dan as soon as he gets his bank account information set.”
After he posted this TikTok, things seemed to calm down on Terrence’s end.
Terrence said, “I don’t have contact with this guy anymore, just because I need to leave the situation. I didn’t want to get any more involved. It was getting kind of dangerous.”
However, Dan was arrested a week later by Tampa police for remaining on department land from sunset to sunrise for ten days, according to the criminal report. The affidavit also mentioned that Dan “does not have an accessible Marine Sanitation Device aboard his vessel and no record of properly disposing of his human waste. He further advised that he was using a bucket or cup to urinate in, creating a hazard to public health and safety.”
CheckTheStar and Dan are no longer in communication, and Dan is no longer staying with him, according to CheckTheStar’s recent livestream.
“I’ve got to admit, when it comes between Dan and Check, there are no good guys in this situation,” TikTok influencer Noah Glenn Carter said on Oct. 26. “The only good guy involved in this situation was Terrence, and he already got out at the perfect time so he didn’t have to go through all of this nonsense.”
After a wild month, with 700 million total views watching Terrence, he says he “hasn’t been posting that many videos. I kind of need to get a break from all this because it’s a lot. I got people making videos about me, people that I’ve never met.”
Terrence has now lost around 2 thousand followers since the hurricane content ended and has been posting less. Tampa locals and his original followers have remained supportive though. “They’re all like, ‘Oh, we watch your videos! You’re like our local news guy.’ So everybody’s been awesome.”
Terrence says he has not gotten paid since this claim to fame as hurricane content goes against TikTok guidelines. “What’s the difference between the weatherman and what I do? How can you say it’s unsafe?”
Amidst the support, he is getting asked what the next move is for his brand of Tampa Terrence.
“I’d love to go into broadcasting maybe,” said Terrance. “Even being on the news and being out in the field, I think would be kind of fun.”