Floridians were scurrying on Oct. 8 to prepare for a second devastating hit in as many weeks. But this time they expected a storm unlike any the hurricane-hardened residents in the central swath of the state have seen in 20 years.
With Hurricane Milton barreling toward a projected Tampa Bay-area landfall—the first in a century—residents in coastal evacuation zones still inundated by Hurricane Helene’s sideswipe were being urged to flee.
But the main escape routes, Interstate 75–running from the bottom of the state to the top and beyond–and Interstate 4, which stretches across the state, intermittently left drivers at a standstill for miles.
Residents inland along Milton’s forecast track—tracing I-4 from Lakeland through Orlando and onto Daytona Beach—were hustling to hunker down in advance of winds expected to reach 110 miles per hour.
The storm is expected to claw ashore like a raging banshee unlike any in the region since Hurricane Charley in 2004.
“It’s been very taxing on our citizens to have to go through this. Just as you’re starting to pick up the pieces from Helene, now you see another monster storm bearing down,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “But we’ll get through this.”
More than 8,000 Florida National Guardsmen, the entire state police force, municipal search-and-rescue teams, and others are all assembling, ready to be dispatched to meet Milton when it comes.
And 40,000 linemen are staged or en route from as far away as California to help restore power after the storm.
“All that will be there ready to go,” DeSantis said. “So, we’re prepared for this.”
He emphasized repeatedly during media engagements throughout the day that those told to evacuate along the coast and along rivers should go to shelters.
Not having a car shouldn’t be a reason to stay in a dangerous area, the governor said. Arrangements had been made, he said, for Uber to carry would-be evacuees to safety.
Determined to Stay
As always, some won’t leave their homes.South Tampa residents Daryl and Mary Davis told The Epoch Times they planned to evacuate Tuesday after deciding to stay put during Hurricane Helene.
Despite being in Evacuation Zone A—marked by Hillsborough County emergency planners as an area most susceptible to flooding—the couple said Helene was the first time their home had flooded in the 40 years they’ve been there.
“There’s nothing left in there,” she said of her home. “I mean, the air conditioner’s on. We never lost power… but literally, the floors are all stripped, and we’re kind of like, down to bare bones, and got everything up as high as we can.”
Helene’s record storm surge exceeded six feet. It put 18 inches of floodwater into the Davises’ home. Now, Hurricane Milton threatens to bring 10 to 15 feet of storm surge into the nearby bay.
“The storm doesn’t bother me at all,” her husband said. “It’s just the surge.”
But their daughter is worried.
So the Davises will split up for the storm: she will go to Orlando, and he will stay close to home and take care of their two cats.
Several neighbors chose to stay during Helene, but were evacuating this time around, they said.
If necessary, they said, they would rebuild.
Getting Above the Storm Surge
Bobby Vasaturo also is staying put.He lives on the 10th floor of a downtown Tampa high-rise, he said. He can park his car on the 5th floor, well above the projected storm surge.
Vasaturo has worked at Westshore Pizza in South Tampa since 2007. It was among the few restaurants that quickly reopened after Hurricane Helene.
The restaurant had a little water damage after the first storm, he said. It had reopened for carry-out orders, but not for anything else.
The word “OPEN” was spray-painted on the pizza joint’s boarded-up windows. The plan was to remain open on Oct. 8 until 8 p.m.
“We board up all the things that we’re not using and got all that done, and then we’re going to board up the last things when we walk out,” Vasaturo said.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister applauded residents who were evacuating as requested from the east and north sides of Tampa Bay.
“I see the long lines at gas stations,” Chronister said. “I see the long lines at grocery stores and supply avenues. You’re getting your essential items. You’re heeding the warnings. Thank you for doing that.”
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department (HCSO) was working with the Florida Highway Patrol to keep traffic moving along I-4 and I-75. Deputies also were maintaining a presence in evacuation zones and were providing security at shelters.
Chronister predicts everyone in Hillsborough County will feel Milton’s wrath.
Risking Death
Those refusing to evacuate from coastal areas and along rivers were risking death, DeSantis said. And he is worried, he said, about debris from Helene taking flight during Milton’s march across Florida.“Most of the buildings in Florida are able to handle [the winds of] a Category 3 storm,” DeSantis said, referring to the state’s Miami-Dade building code standards adopted in Hurricane Andrew’s wake in 1992.
But Helene’s remaining debris poses a problem.
Since the storm, local governments have been working to pick up storm debris, often with the help of contractors, DeSantis said.
But the effort wasn’t moving fast enough.
“This weekend, I took all of our state agencies—any truck we had anywhere in the state involved in normal missions. We diverted it over to those barrier islands. We’re doing a 24/7 debris mission,” he said.
“So we’ve been able—in 48 hours with our state assets—to do as much debris removal as any of the contractors who have been doing this for almost two weeks.”
Seeking Shelter
Those in low-lying evacuation zones who hadn’t fled yet shouldn’t consider staying in their homes simply because they’ve heard some roads are clogged or fuel is scarce, DeSantis said.“You do not have to get on the interstate and drive hundreds of miles. There are shelters open all throughout the state of Florida. In your county, there are shelters that are on higher ground and that are hurricane-proof.”
Throughout Central Florida, drivers faced long lines at gas stations. And at many, bags over nozzles signaled the pumps were dry.
The depletion of fuel was temporary, DeSantis said during an interview on Fox News early on Oct. 8.
Trucks carrying gasoline, escorted by Florida Highway Patrol officers, were on the way.
“It’s not a supply issue. It’s a distribution issue. Because the stations are running through it faster than they normally do,” he said.
“We have a billion-and-a-half gallons that are either in Florida or en route in reserve. Our Port of Tampa is still open. It’s still going to be receiving fuel.”
Marcos Gleffe, 41, of Englewood in Charlotte County, decided not to evacuate, despite “nerve-wracking” news reports about Milton. His home sits about 80 miles south of Tampa Bay.
“I live in a really, really, old area,” he told The Epoch Times. “Most people are in their 60s. My neighbor across the street, she’s in a wheelchair.”
Gleffe is hunkering down at home. His wife and daughter evacuated to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, days ago.
As an able-bodied construction worker, he said he would much rather stay and be able to help, rather than fight the traffic trying to get back in after the storm—especially considering the devastation left by Hurricane Helene.
“With all the emergency that’s happening in North Carolina and everything, we don’t know what’s going to happen, how long it’s going to take for help to get here,” he said.
Gleffe’s house is just far enough from the Gulf that he doesn’t anticipate too much flooding. The winds, however, could be brutal.
“The risk of tornadoes, 125 mile-per-hour wind gusts—it’s stressful. But at the end of the day, I feel like being here and helping out,” he said.
He figures his stocked-up supplies could last him two or three months.
Still, with every hour that Milton maintains major hurricane status, Gleffe grows more nervous.
“I’m scared,” he said. “Every minute that goes by, it feels like an hour, and I’m like: Am I making the right decision?”
Worries About Pets
Memories of Hurricane Charley were very much on the minds of people in Lakeland, about 30 miles east of Tampa, as Milton spun closer to the state. The city of 110,000 was abuzz with anxiety as residents hustled to prepare for whatever was to come.Along State Route 17 in South Lakeland, one of the nation’s fastest-growing areas, with thousands of new subdivisions and a recently completed two-year road grid alignment, many gas stations were out of fuel.
Beth Livingston of Willow Oak, a Tampa suburb, was grateful to have found the 20-pump gas station next to Walmart. She was relieved it had no more than a 10-minute wait for fuel in lines stretching onto two roads, including busy State Route 17.
A retired Warner University professor, who once hosted TamTalk on a Clearwater radio station, Livingston said her home is in an evacuation zone. But she can’t go anywhere, she said.
“We have a pet rescue,” she said. “No hotel or shelter is going to take us and all the animals.”
Research after Hurricane Katrina showed that 44 percent of respondents who didn’t evacuate said it was because they didn’t want to leave pets behind.
All counties in Florida have at least one pet-friendly hurricane shelter, DeSantis said repeatedly in briefings.
Even “abandoned pets” at animal shelters in Milton’s path have been moved to “safer shelters in other parts of the state,” he said.
But Livingston said she has too many animals and she’s not leaving them behind.
And Milton is going to be bad, she said.
Maybe it will change course, maybe not, she shrugged. It’s a hurricane. It goes where it goes.
‘Hide From the Wind’
Central Floridians between Tampa and Daytona Beach—in cities along I-4, such as Lakeland and Orlando—have been brushed by hurricanes that hammered ashore in Ft. Myers and Punta Gorda. They’ve witnessed those that pounded the state’s Panhandle region in the north, as Helene did just two weeks ago.But it’s been at least 20 years—since Charley—since the region was forecast to take the pummeling Milton was predicted to deliver.
There is no evacuation for most in the middle of the state. There is only hunkering down and fortifying against what could be 12 or more hours of 110-mile-per-hour winds.
“You run from the water,” DeSantis said during an interview. “You hide from the wind.”
Shane Bucknor of Winter Haven wasn’t worried as he filled up his truck at Murray’s.
“I’m used to this sort of stuff—I’m from the islands,” he said. Before a storm, getting gas is just part of his routine. He cuts lawns as a side hustle from his construction job.
Time is money. So those with fuel can get to work sooner once the storm has passed.
If he misses some construction work, he said, “I’ll spend that time with my kids.”
But it would only be a brief pause.
“If anything, this is going to create more work for me,” Bucknor said.
Bonnie Gadsby, a longtime Lakeland resident with a new home in South Lakeland, wasn’t fretting about flooding. It was the wind that worried her.
Milton “is a little bit bigger than what we’re used to having, something not seen here since Charley,” she said. But she was confident her new home, built to Miami-Dade standards, would withstand the storm.
That won’t be the case for everyone in this neck of the woods, Gadsby said.
No Plans to Prepare
Savannah Smith was working the counter at RaceTrac, with its 20 pumps out of gas and no indication when—or if—any fuel trucks would show up anytime soon.All daily lottery tickets have been “put up, walked away,” but can still be purchased online, she said. The store has no propane, no ice, and without gas, few customers.
Smith said she had no idea what tomorrow will bring … or the day after. That’s always a mystery anyway, she shrugged.
“Personally? No. I have no plans or preparation,” she said. “But it’s all right. I’ll deal with whatever comes, whatever happens.”
At the Wawa convenience store on Florida 17, there was much displeasure among those waiting in idling cars on access roads and along the highway when they learned there was no more regular gas.
But those at its 20 pumps know a secret that won’t last long: some pumps still have premium.
“I’ll pay the extra,” Delbert Strechtner of Lakeland said. “I have two generators and a dozen Tampa refugees at my place. The wife is shopping for an army and this is my job. I think I got off easy.”
Fellow Lakeland resident McClaine Geraci filled up with whatever he could find that could carry away gas.
He’s a former U.S. Navy aviation ordnance man, who served deployments aboard the USS George H.W. Bush. Working amid fires, fuel, and explosives on a swaying flight deck was a routine hazard.
But there’s something not routine in the air in central Florida. Something wicked this way comes, he sensed.
Milton will be Geraci’s third hurricane since getting out of the Navy in August and moving to Lakeland to work with a start-up pool maintenance firm, America’s Swimming Pool Company.
Pool maintenance is going to be important in the days and weeks after Milton, he said. If water is disconnected, there will be issues in keeping pools clean.
But many are likely to be entangled with crushed lanai screening, with mangled frames becoming missile-hazards during the blow, entangled in trees or in debris fields that will glaze a suddenly, violently reshaped landscape.
No matter what, Geraci and his teammates will be working, he said, “as soon as we can get out.”
