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Florida is experiencing fuel shortages due to a surge in evacuations as Hurricane Milton approaches. According to GasBuddy, a fuel tracker in the U.S., Canada and Australia, the storm has left 23.03% of gas stations without fuel in the state as of Tuesday morning.
Areas set to be hard hit by the storm are experiencing some of the highest rates of fuel shortages, including:
Other areas, like Gainsville, are experiencing shortages as well, despite not being forecast to experience the most devastating effects of the storm.
Shortages will continue to increase as Milton nears landfall, which forecasters believe will happen late Wednesday or early Thursday, per Newsweek.
Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, described the shortage to MarketWatch as “demand event” as the state had already been dealing with the effects of Hurricane Helene, which hit the Florida coast on Sept. 26.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told MarketWatch that “Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Floridians are trying to head north on the two major highways.”
He advises that residents trying to evacuate purchase gas from larger stations off highway exits for more efficient services.
Gas shortages are among the factors impacting ease of evacuation for residents in and out of evacuation zones in Florida amid the massive storm.
Evacuation orders, both mandatory and voluntary, have been issued for residents in parts of certain counties in Florida ahead of Milton’s landfall, many of which are located in areas where gas stations have been drained. These areas are divided into zones by forecasted damage severity, so residents outside of the highest rated zones may choose to hunker down and wait out the storm.
In addition to fuel shortages, those who have chosen or will choose to evacuate face heavy traffic, especially on highways. The New York Times reported that roads in Florida experienced 150% of normal traffic on Monday, with traffic clearing in the early hours of Tuesday morning before ramping up again with new evacuation orders.
Evacuation doesn’t always mean leaving a city or county. It can be a short trip a few miles out of a surge zone. As such, officials are asking people not to travel further inland than is necessary, and to stay in shelters where possible.
Even with tolls waived and road shoulders being opened up to let traffic through, traffic rates continue to soar, and residents trying to evacuate should not remain on the road as conditions get worse.
On Monday evening, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned people that “If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die,” on CNN with Kaitlan Collins, per The Hill.
“There’s never been one like this. … Helene was a wake-up call. This is literally catastrophic,” she said.
While the logistics of evacuating are perilous enough, there are barriers to even being able to choose to evacuate. Some people must heavily weigh their options, and for others there is simply no option.
“Evacuating is a privilege, and a lot of people don’t have that privilege,” Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, a research associate at the Natural Hazards Center at CU Boulder, said.
Other barriers include but are not limited to:
Some choose to remain due to a skewed risk perception, MacPherson-Krutsky said. They may not believe the severity of the evacuation warnings after living through other hurricanes that were projected to be worse than they ended up. Others have pets they don’t want to leave behind and aren’t sure they can bring, or they simply don’t want to leave their homes.