Florida gas stations in these major cities face fuel shortages amid Hurricane Milton evacuations

Floridians fleeing Hurricane Milton on Tuesday faced shortages at gas stations in addition to congested roads.

“Every highway is dead-stop traffic it seems,” said Chris Cain, a resident of Sanibel Island preparing to evacuate Tuesday with his girlfriend and 8-month-old. “There are fuel outages throughout the area, so there’s navigating that to even get to” the hotel 20 miles inland that the couple booked earlier in the week, Cain told CBS MoneyWatch.

Hurricane Milton, currently a violent Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 145 miles per hour, headed eastward early Tuesday as it moved just off the north coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Milton is expected to make landfall early Thursday, according to CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan. 

The storm comes as many Floridians and other Gulf Coast residents try to recover after getting slammed by Hurricane Helene, and in Cain’s case, Hurricane Ian, which struck just over two years ago. 

“We just had the house rebuilt and moved back in last year — the entire inside of the house was flooded with 30 or 40 feet of water, it gutted the entire house,” said Cain, noting that the storm surge from Helene came to within about three feet of his family’s garage door.

Florida gas stations without fuel

As of late morning on Tuesday, nearly 15%, or 1,146, of Florida’s 7,912 gas stations were without fuel, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told CBS MoneyWatch. Hardest-hit are the Fort Myers/Naples and Tampa/St. Petersburg areas, where percentages were running far higher. In Cape Coral, as many as 50% of stations were without fuel, De Haan said.

As of 2 p.m. Eastern, 17.4% of Florida gas stations had no gas, according to De Haan’s latest update on social media.

“Best bets for motorists evacuating that need fuel: major travel stops have larger underground tanks and have more resources generally — trucks and drivers,” De Haan tweeted. “Or large chains as well that have many locations. Fuel is flowing but stations are having a hard time keeping up.”

Motorist Ralph Douglas, in line for gas in the Riverview area, said some filling stations near his home in Ruskin, Florida, roughly 30 miles south of Tampa, ran out of gas, but he was able to find fuel elsewhere. 

Also in line was Martin Oakes of Apollo Beach. “I was able to get some gas yesterday, but then they ran out. So now I’m trying to get gas here again and, you know, long lines, trickling gas pumps.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sought to assuage concerns about supplies, asserting at a Tuesday morning news briefing, “There is no fuel shortage. Fuel continues to arrive in the state of Florida.”

That may come as little consolation to motorists reporting empty fuel pumps. 

“You can’t tell someone outside a pump with no gas that there’s no shortage,” De Haan said.

The issue isn’t a lack of fuel, but that the system of refueling can’t keep up with demand, he added. “Some of the bigger names, if they run out, it could be an hour or two — but some stations could be out 24 hours.”

Gas stations in these Florida cities face fuel shortage

According to Gas Buddy, a technology company that tracks the locations and prices of gas across the U.S., as of 11:10 a.m. ET, the percentages of stations without fuel in major Florida cities were:

• Fort Myers/Naples: 27.79%
• Gainesville: 24.71%
• Jacksonville: 1.55%
• Miami/Fort Lauderdale: 1.05%
• Pensacola: 0.57%
• Orlando/Daytona Beach: 14.68%
• Tallahassee: 2.06%
• Tampa/St. Petersburg: 43.06%
• West Palm Beach: 1.51%

De Haan said those without an immediate need for gas should not be racing to fill up. “This is not an event that is going to cause gas prices to skyrocket,” he said.

But calmer heads don’t always prevail, as Cain recalled a chaotic scene earlier in the week at the Walmart in Fort Myers Beach as residents readied for the storm. “People were ripping cases of water off the pallets as they were brought from the back of the store,” Cain said.

Ned Bowman, spokesperson for the Florida Petroleum Marketers Association, said the situation was typical for a Florida hurricane, with demand peaking and some stations temporarily running dry. He said suppliers are “constantly” moving fuel to stations.”Have patience,” Bowman said. “It’s out there.”

contributed to this report.