If there are hotel rooms available, they will fill them. Hurricane Milton’s refugees are pouring into South Florida to escape the monstrous storm.
Jean Lamere brought what she could from her home in Fort Myers, having learned the lesson from Hurricane Ian’s destruction a couple of years ago.
“I know from Ian that the street that I’m on will be flooded probably for a week, so it doesn’t make sense to stay in a place where one, it’s dangerous, and two, there are no resources,” Lamere said, agreeing that it’s better to check into a hotel in Davie.
HURRICANE MILTON
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“I live on a canal over there so the flood water’s gonna come up, they’re talking six to ten feet," said Tom Piatkowski.
He came from Cape Coral, carrying vivid memories of Ian.
“Well you know we took the category five with Ian off our bucket list, OK, we don’t need to do a bucket list any more, it was time to come over here,” Piatkowski said with a laugh as he checked into a hotel in Sunrise.
In the same hotel parking lot, we met Rita and Ron, who drove over Tuesday morning, also from Cape Coral.
“I no want the same experience, seven hours inside the closet, no power, no more,” said Rita Boncompt, relating her experience during Ian.
Also on the road Tuesday, droves of colleges students driving home from UF, UCF, USF and other universities whose campuses are in harm’s way.
“It was a last minute decision, it was pretty quick, just yesterday, my parents were telling me I had to come home,” said Eitan Braja, a University of Florida student.
We met him and a group of his friends at the Turnpike plaza in West Palm Beach, where they had stopped for lunch on their drive to Miami.
“When we heard about the storm we had to like, find rides, everyone was like leaving, fleeing, so we just, like texted the first person, like 'hey, are you going home, can I come with you,' all this,” explained UF student Jamie Schlaen.
No one wanted to leave Gainesville, but it wasn’t safe to stay.
“It’s really annoying and the last hurricane I lost power for two days and I was like, no way I’m doing that again,” said UF student Michael Benzadon.
“Class is canceled, so we’re not missing anything so it’s still annoying to have to, like, pack up and leave and to interrupt everything,” added UF student Micaela Kaszas.
