Fears of Hurricane Milton Drive Millions From Their Homes in Florida

Fears of Hurricane Milton Drive Millions From Their Homes in Florida

More than 5.5 million people were urged to leave Florida’s western coast, one of the largest evacuations in state history. Some who have stayed for previous storms decided to go this time.

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By Patricia Mazzei and Isabelle Taft

Patricia Mazzei reported from the Tampa Bay region.

The threat of Hurricane Milton to Florida’s densely populated Tampa Bay region led to one of the largest evacuations in the state’s history this week. Officials urged millions of people out of possible harm’s way.

The evacuations started on Monday, slowing highways to a crawl, and grew in number on Tuesday, with officials warning there was no time to lose. Milton is expected to strike the vulnerable Tampa region late Wednesday or early Thursday. The area hasn’t had a direct strike from a hurricane in more than a century.

Some 5.5 million people live in areas that were under mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders as of Tuesday morning, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And more orders were issued by local and state officials throughout the day, expanding the evacuation zone.

To try to keep major evacuation routes from clogging, officials urged residents to go to nearby shelters and not travel farther inland than necessary. Still, roads saw 150 percent of normal traffic on Monday, according to state officials.

Tolls were waived and highway shoulders were opened to try to keep cars moving, but traffic still slowed to 20 miles per hour in some spots. It eventually cleared by 1 a.m. on Tuesday, state officials said, though more jammed highways were expected later in the day as evacuation orders grew.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida encouraged people to leave using state roads, too.

Many people told to evacuate live in coastal and low-lying communities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country, with about 3.5 million people. Others are further south, on barrier islands and in coastal towns that were hit by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

That does not mean entire cities are being cleared out. Tampa’s most vulnerable spots, for example, include the South Tampa neighborhood, parts of downtown and the area east of Tampa Bay. Parts of downtown St. Petersburg are near the water, but at a high enough elevation to be out of any evacuation zone.

On Tuesday morning, officials in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, said residents who evacuate need to plan on being in a safe place by 7 a.m. Wednesday, before the strongest effects of Milton begin to affect the region.

“Don’t panic,” said the county’s emergency management director, Timothy Dudley, Jr. “You have time. Get somewhere safe, and we’ll see you on the other end.”

Evacuation orders are intended to move people away from deadly storm surge, not from a storm’s damaging winds. Florida’s strong building code means most newer buildings can withstand even a major hurricane, though residents may lose power, water, sewage and other services.

On Tuesday, many of the affected neighborhoods felt desolate, suggesting that residents had taken evacuation orders seriously, and that officials had delivered them with enough time for people to act.

Erin Roth, 43, said she decided to leave her home in Seminole, Fla., in the Tampa Bay area, even though it is not in a mandatory evacuation zone. She wanted to be sure her 15-year-old daughter and two dogs would be safe.

“I was panicked,” she said. “I just thought we needed to go.”

The only rooms her family could find were in Atlanta. They left at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, and eight hours later had just made it to Valdosta, Ga., across the state line — about twice the time the trip would usually take.

Evacuees have also faced long lines at gas stations. Gov. DeSantis said the state was deploying fuel trucks to keep stations supplied until shipments stop arriving at the Port of Tampa, which typically supplies gas to much of western Central Florida. The state’s Highway Patrol said it was escorting fuel trucks to stations.

Florida’s largest evacuation took place ahead of Hurricane Irma in 2017. That storm’s unusual path placed almost all of the state in the forecast cone, beginning with the southernmost Florida Keys. The governor at the time, Rick Scott, urged people to get out, and many did, driving for many hours, often clear out of the state, to try to outrun the storm.

Some 6.8 million people were under evacuation orders for Irma, according to FEMA.

Irma caught some Floridians on the highways in bad weather. After the storm did not prove to be so damaging in some areas, some people said they would probably not evacuate again.

But Hurricane Ian two years ago may have changed their calculus. About 150 people died, many of them by drowning, after the storm’s path shifted south from the Tampa area toward Fort Myers Beach. Emergency managers in Lee County, where the storm made landfall, were criticized for waiting too long to order people out, against their own existing storm plans.

Ahead of Hurricane Milton, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and local officials advised people under evacuation orders to move just a few miles inland to avoid the dangerous storm surge but avoid clogging up highways further inland.

In St. Pete Beach, a barrier island town that was devastated by Hurricane Helene’s surge last month, Pam and Larry Flynn were packing up their second-floor apartment on Tuesday morning and preparing to evacuate.

They stayed in the apartment during Helene, but they were afraid that Milton’s surge and winds would be worse. “One of the diehards said he was leaving,” Ms. Flynn said. “I said, ‘OK, I think we’re the last ones.’”

Amanda Holpuch and Jacey Fortin contributed.