Florida residents describe preparing for, evacuating from Hurricane Milton

TAMPA — People in Florida are bracing for Hurricane Milton.

The storm is expected to make landfall in the Tampa Bay Area on Wednesday evening and could be the storm of the century.

Right now, the Tampa and Orlando airports are shut down. Many mandatory evacuation orders have been issued along the Gulf Coast, causing traffic jams and fuel shortages for families scrambling to escape the path of the storm.

Elise Sullivan, of Pine-Richland, lives in St. Petersburg. She said there were major backups heading to Fort Lauderdale where her parents have a home.

“It’s usually like a three and half hour drive for me to get here. It took me almost seven hours to get here,” Sullivan said.

Meanwhile, Bridget Davis of the North Hills plans to stay in Naples with her family.

“We are far enough inland where we think we are going to be okay from the storm surge. We are protected from the wind with our shutters. We want to keep the roads clear for the people who really need to evacuate and get hotels as well,” said Bridget Davis.

Eric Wenning of North Huntingdon said he got one of the last flights out of Fort Myers after having to evacuate Sanibel Island.

“We received a call from our condo management. They gave us 40 minutes to get off the island. They were doing mandatory evacuations. They literally just got word from the city of Sanibel to get off the island as soon as possible,” Wenning said.

Wenning shared images of the island still recovering from Hurricane Ian two years ago. Ian also impacted Naples and Marco Island where Jessica Storti and Guy Amato, of New Castle, live. They just returned to Pittsburgh and say it’s now a waiting game.

“Once you get out, you’ve done everything you can, secured your property. We have insurance. We just to accept we did everything we can, and you watch and wait and that’s very difficult,” Amato said.

“We just pray that everyone else gets out in time too,” Storti said.

Two local families Channel 11 spoke with had to cancel their trip to Disney World. Disney World and Universal Studios are both closed on Thursday.

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