DAVIE, FLA. (WSVN) - Several residents living along Florida’s Gulf Coast have evacuated as Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on Wednesday. While many people are scrambling to find a safe place to ride out the storm, many have found themselves seeking shelter in South Florida.
Long traffic lines were seen along the eastbound lanes on Alligator Alley as some evacuees from Tampa, Naples, Fort Myers and Sarasota made their way toward Broward County, Tuesday.
Officials closed down the westbound lanes to allow congestion to flow more smoothly on the eastbound lanes.
For people that left on Monday, they told 7News they didn’t see any traffic on Alligator Alley.
“We recently just got through Helene in St. Petersburg, we live in Shore Acres, which is a neighborhood that tends to get flooded, so we just went through that about a week ago, and we’re very scared about what’s going to happen with our home,” said Karina Kobil. “And my mom is on permanent oxygen, so we were fearful that we were going to lose power for too many days and that’s why we drove down here.”
“It’s scary, it’s really scary, it’s not scary right now,” said Lori Bulock. “It’s scary thinking about what we are going to find when we go back.”
Residents from all over Florida’s west coast were running from the storm, and Alligator Alley was a straight shot out. With just one day left to get in place, the road was packed.
“We were on the road by 6 a.m.,” said Chris Kobil.
Other residents avoided the main interstate.
“I took 41 over, so didn’t take 75 ’cause everyone said that was like a parking lot,” said Niki Bauer.
Several others sat in traffic as they left the west coast.
“Took about twice as long as it normally does. It was OK,” said Russell Bulock.
Most of them drove through rain to get to South Florida but how they got there and how long it took varied.
Some evacuees will shelter in Broward County, while others will head to Miami-Dade. But the one thing they all have in common is their reason for running.
“Just hold tight, wait and see what happens and pray for our whole state, the whole west coast,” said Carry Harbord.
As people make their way off Alligator Alley, finding a hotel to stay at will be their next step.
Thousands of cars piled up on the evacuation bridge in St. Petersburg Beach Tuesday night, trying to get off the oceanside.
One resident of Florida’s west coast spoke with 7News about his own experience after evacuating his home in Pinellas County.
“An inconvenience, but one well worth it, I would think.” Neil Palenzuela told 7News.
“And you’ve got the pets, too,” said 7News reporter Michael Hudak.
“Oh yes, I’m sorry, I forgot about them. We have two dogs and a cat with us,” said Neil.
Palenzuela is an evacuee from near Belleair, Florida, just south of Clearwater. He was accompanied by his wife, two daughters, son-in-law, and friend. He arrived in South Florida Monday night.
“We live probably a mile from the water,” said Neil. “If this thing is supposed to hit at maybe a cat. 3, 4, 5, I wasn’t going to stick around and find out. So we figured we’d just pack up everybody and leave. Don’t take any chances, could have the potential to do some severe damage. It’s life threatening. You’ve heard of catastrophic storm surge. Why? It’s not worth it.”
Neil managed to book a room on Monday and Tuesday night in Weston’s Hampton Inn but he was not able to book one on Wednesday due to a lack of room.
The hotel manager told 7News that within the last day, 128 of their rooms have been filled up by people who fled from the west coast of Florida.
After finding a hotel in South Florida to stay, many families’ next step may have to be to repeat the process once again to find a new hotel.
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