Highways are jammed, gas is running out… 6.5 million people in Florida rush to evacuate, 9 counties order mandatory evacuation_1

As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, millions are evacuating their homes in a race against time, facing long traffic jams and struggling to find fuel as gas stations rapidly run out of supplies.

Meteorologists have declared Hurricane Milton the most powerful storm to impact the Gulf of Mexico since 2005, leading officials in nine Florida counties to issue mandatory evacuation orders.

A report from The New York Times on October 8 indicated that approximately 6.5 million residents along Florida’s Gulf Coast began their evacuation efforts as they braced for the hurricane’s expected landfall on October 9. The lines of evacuees extended for miles, and gas stations struggled to keep fuel available.

Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s Emergency Management Department, described this evacuation as potentially the largest since Hurricane Irma in 2017. He urged residents in the evacuation zones to leave as quickly as possible to avoid being trapped in traffic.

On October 7, Sarasota County government posted a warning on social media, saying, “This will likely be the largest evacuation on Florida’s west coast. If you wait, you will get stuck in traffic.”

Even those who began their evacuees early are experiencing substantial delays. Residents heading north on the 7th found themselves stuck in traffic jams and encountering gas stations that had already run dry, turning what should have been a straightforward journey into an hours-long ordeal.

Jacqueline Camenisch, 62, cut short a family trip to Orlando and headed north with her children and grandchildren. Planning to reach Gainesville, about 100 miles away, she soon discovered that all accommodations in the area were fully booked.

Camenisch opted to travel along Florida’s west coast and then take Interstate 75 north toward Panama City. In an interview around 2:30 AM on the 8th, she shared that what should have been a six-hour drive had already taken seven and a half hours, with still about an hour to go.

“I’ve never seen this much traffic before,” Camenisch said, adding, “It’s really terrible,” as vehicles crept along, one after another.

In Hillsborough County, officials also issued a mandatory evacuation order and alerted the public via social media about heavy traffic on sections of Interstate 75 and Interstate 275. Footage from the roads showed almost standstill conditions for northbound traffic on Interstate 75.

By 6:30 PM Eastern Time on October 8, nearly 7,912 gas stations across Florida had run out of fuel, representing about 17.4% of the total. Data from GasBuddy, a fuel market tracker, indicated there were virtually no shortages just a day earlier on the 7th.

Patrick De Haan, an oil analyst from GasBuddy, pointed out, “As people scramble to leave dangerous areas, fuel demand spikes dramatically.”

As Hurricane Milton looms, stores in Tampa have seen their shelves stripped bare of essential goods, with supplies disappearing since October 6.