Florida residents evacuate inland as Hurricane Milton approaches

Anna Maria Island, Florida
CNN
—

Carol Whitmore couldn't pack her large SUV to leave this barrier island as Hurricane Milton headed toward Florida's west coast Tuesday with already historic force.

Hurricane Helene engulfed it two weeks ago.

“Up to the door panels” the surf came crashing in from that murderous storm that made landfall not even near here but about 200 miles north, she said.

Nevertheless, Whitmore was cut off in Helene for a while. Then her daughter found her on the family safety app Life360, she said, before “some kids I'd known since they were little picked me up” in a boat.

On this Tuesday morning — about 40 hours before Milton's predicted landfall — the longtime Manatee County official didn't ignore her latest lesson. Whitmore wouldn't risk it again. She would drive to Orlando in her other vehicle, important papers from her locker and “enough clothes for a while” in tow.

“Everything I have right now is in my car and I had to make room for my dog… Maddie, a little rescue,” she said.

“Frankly, only a fool would remain,” Whitmore added, naming Milton, “the one we always prepared for — but never had.”

Like millions of people across Florida, Whitmore on Tuesday went all-in on her plan to weather a massive and powerful hurricane that is growing wider and stronger by the hour as it threatened to use countless tons of as-yet-uncollected Helene debris as a missile depot and at the same time terrorizing a weary public with predicted record storm surge and wind.

Just the previous day, nationwide warnings had reverberated as Milton, flirting with Category 5 intensity in the warm Gulf of Mexico, targeted a swath of Florida nearly as long as the peninsula itself. The mayor of nearby Tampa had a dire warning pronounced: “If you choose to stay in one of these evacuation areas,” said Jane Castor, “you will die.”

On this island of prime ocean shores, Holmes Beach's police chief reiterated the warning Tuesday: “If you're not careful, you're on your own,” Bill Tokajer said. “You might as well take a marker and write your name and social security number on your leg so we have someone to contact if we find you…

“Because staying out here isn’t going to work,” he said. “It won’t be good for you.”

Elsewhere across Florida on Tuesday, residents crowded bridges and secondary roads, state highways and highways to flee coasts as storm surges of up to 15 feet were forecast. Behind the wheel on Interstate 4, Jake Keglor had rear-viewed his home in Seminole, near St. Petersburg, by 9 a.m. Tuesday

But soon he had a new problem.

“Gas is the biggest problem,” Keglor said. He made the 100-mile trek northeast to Orlando with his 14-year-old gray tabby cat, Sugs, the day after his parents spent eight hours in the evacuation traffic jam. “All the gas pumps have bags on them” because they are empty.

Traffic also “isn’t great,” he said, even with “all shoulders…open.”

When a hurricane hit, Keglor usually stayed put: 3 miles from shore, in evacuation zone C. But last month's deadly hurricane had also upended his usual way of thinking.

“Two weeks ago I and Helene had never seen as much as we did,” said Keglor. Friends who had initially made blasé comments about the storm on social media were suddenly “not so relaxed anymore: their car is half under water.”

Since then, crews across Florida have been working hard to clear away piles of debris—doors, mattresses, stools and couches, refrigerators and side tables, even an honor roll memento earned by someone named Angel—that remains of Helene before Milton can use it as ammunition.

“We've been out here for 48 hours doing everything we can to help clean up these streets,” said Greg Mullis, operations manager for waste hauling company College HUNKS, while working Tuesday in Pinellas County's Gandy community south of Tampa.

“There are a lot of streets that are a war zone.”

“We have been working non-stop since Sunday just to assist with curbside pickup and clean up damage that, as you know, is ultimately unnecessary at this point,” said colleague Dan Whelan, the vice president of operations corporate.

Marie Saveikis, 82 years young, wanted to stay in her coastal home during Milton, she said. But her children and grandchildren insisted she evacuate to Belleair Bluffs, south of Clearwater, which she will do — but not before she prepares.

“Last night I showered before I went to bed,” said the Pittsburgh native, who raised four children and ran a hair salon as a single mother. “As soon as I wash my hair, I will take another one and not put any product in it, so in the morning I can just take my little bag and go to my son-in-law.

“For me, it’s toiletries and medicine,” she continued. “And clean clothes because I’m a clean freak… I don’t care about my makeup, I don’t care about my hair; I just need to be clean.”

Back on Anna Maria Island early Tuesday afternoon, Montana snowbirds Skip and Annie Radick walked their dog Skip over the flat sand and scattered dune grasses that had withstood the storm surge until Helene.

“We just took our last sentimental walk…and took a few photos and we're heading inland,” Skip said. “We've been on the island since 1997 and, yes: for the first time we didn't see anyone on the beach – for the first time.”

The couple planned to evacuate in a few hours. In a few days, Annie said, “I don't think we'll have another house.”

“It's sad, of course, because we, our children and grandchildren, have been coming here for 12 years,” Skip said. “It’s part of her growing up, right? And probably won't be here anymore. So it is what it is. A lot of people go through much worse.”

As the hour of landing approached, Tokajer – the police chief of Holmes Beach – “juggled.”

“There’s no other word for it,” he said. “We are still working on Helene and at the same time we are working on Milton. So we're trying to get everyone out of Milton, and we're trying to move all the rubble away from Helene…

“And if you haven’t evacuated yet, get out by tonight. “You have to get out of here,” he said. “So far it looks as if the increase will be twice as high as for Helene. If we have double Helene's flood, the water out here will be over my head. We won't be here.

“It will be surreal.”

Earlier, Keglor had reflected on his own rare evacuation with his tabby cat on Interstate 4, which in some ways reflected the unusual nature of Milton for Florida's central west coast: “If the storm stays on the current track, it will be the worst storm “This will impact the Tampa area for over 100 years,” the city's National Weather Service warned Monday.

“Statistically speaking, I guess we haven't really been hit directly in 100 years, and that seems to be it,” Keglor said.

Then, as he crept along the highway—with Milton churning in the Gulf—Keglor's thoughts turned to a lore he had picked up during his years in Seminole.

“It's like the Tocobaga tribe that blessed the Tampa Bay area and warded off storms,” he explained.

“And it just feels like it’s time to repeat that blessing.”

CNN's Paul P. Murphy reported from the west coast of Florida and Michelle Krupa wrote from Atlanta; Leigh Waldman in Tampa contributed to this report.