BRANDON, Fla. (AP) — Floridians recovering from Hurricane Milton spent much of Saturday searching for gas, with lines snaking around stations as a fuel shortage gripped the state.
In St. Petersburg, scores of people lined up at a station that had no gas, hoping it would arrive soon. Among them was Daniel Thornton and his 9-year-old daughter Magnolia, who arrived at the station at 7 a.m. and were still waiting four hours later.
“They told me they have gas coming but they don’t know when it’s going to be here,” he said. “I have no choice. I have to sit here all day with her until I get gas.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters Saturday morning that the state opened three fuel distribution sites and planned to open several more. Residents can get 10 gallons (37.85 liters) each, free of charge, he said.
“Obviously as power gets restored ... and the Port of Tampa is open, you’re going to see the fuel flowing. But in the meantime, we want to give people another option,” DeSantis said.
Officials were replenishing area gas stations with the state's fuel stockpiles and provided generators to stations that remained without power.
The fuel shortage comes as residents, many of whom fled hundreds of miles to escape the hurricane, were making the slow trips home on crowded highways.
‘I wasn’t going to take a chance on it'
Milton killed at least 10 people when it tore across central Florida, flooding barrier islands, ripping the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays ′ baseball stadium and spawning deadly tornadoes.
Officials say the toll could have been worse if not for the widespread evacuations.
“I love my house, but I’m not dying in it,” Fred Neuman said Friday while walking his dog outside a rest stop off Interstate 75 north of Tampa.
Neuman and his wife live in Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall Wednesday night as a powerful, Category 3 hurricane. Heeding local evacuation orders, they drove nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers) to Destin on the Florida Panhandle. Neighbors told the couple the hurricane destroyed their carport and inflicted other damage, but Neuman shrugged, saying their insurance should cover it.
Nearby, Lee and Pamela Essenburm made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at a picnic table at the crowded rest stop. Their home in Palmetto, on the south end of Tampa Bay, had a tree fall in the backyard. They evacuated fearing the damage would be more severe, worrying Milton might hit as a catastrophic Category 4 or 5 storm.
“I wasn't going to take a chance on it,” Lee Essenbaum said. “It’s not worth it.”
The still-fresh devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene just two weeks earlier likely helped compel many people to flee.
“When people see firsthand what can happen, especially in neighboring areas, it can drive behavior change in future storms,” said former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate.
In the seaside town of Punta Gorda, Mayor Lynne Matthews said rescuers only had to save three people from floodwaters after Milton passed, compared with 121 rescues from Helene's flooding.
“So people listened to the evacuation order,” Matthews told a news conference Friday, noting that local authorities ensured residents heard them. “We had teams out with the megaphones going through all of our mobile home communities and other places to let people know that they needed to evacuate.”
Overall, more than a thousand people had been rescued in the wake of the storm as of Saturday, DeSantis said.
Biden to visit Florida
On Sunday, President Joe Biden will survey the devastation inflicted on Florida’s Gulf Coast by the hurricane. He said he hopes to connect with DeSantis during the visit.
The trip offers Biden another opportunity to press Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to call lawmakers back to Washington to approve more funding during their pre-election recess. It’s something Johnson says he won’t do.
Biden is making the case that Congress needs to act now to ensure the Small Business Administration and FEMA have the money they need to get through hurricane season, which stretches through November in the Atlantic. The president said Friday that Milton had caused $50 billion in estimated damages.
DeSantis welcomed the federal government's approval of a disaster declaration announced Saturday and said he had gotten strong support from Biden.
“He basically said, you know, you guys are doing a great job. We’re here for you,” he said when asked about his conversations with Biden. “We sent a big request and we got approved for what we wanted.”
Safety threats remain, including rising rivers
As the recovery continues, DeSantis has warned people to be cautious, citing ongoing safety threats including downed power lines and standing water.
By midday Saturday, some 1.5 million Floridians were still without power, according to poweroutage.us. St. Petersburg’s 260,000 residents were told to boil water before drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth, until at least Monday.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Paul Close said rivers will “keep rising" for the next four or five days resulting in river flooding, mostly around Tampa Bay and northward. Those areas were hit by the most rain, which comes on top of a wet summer that included several earlier hurricanes.
“You can't do much but wait,” Close said of the rivers cresting. “At least there is no rain in the forecast, no substantial rain. So we have a break here from all our wet weather.”
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Farrington reported from St. Petersburg. Associated Press journalists Chris O'Meara in Lithia, Florida; Curt Anderson in Tampa; Terry Spencer outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed.
Russ Bynum, Brendan Farrington And Ty Oneil, The Associated Press
