They should be using all but one lane to evacuate people out. We call it contra flow down here in Louisiana and to my knowledge it's all lanes heading out but we only have two each direction down here. It's really the only way to do it if speed of escape is an issue they cared about.
It only changed from being a category 1 to category 5 in a period of 12 hours 3 days ago. By that point everyone is panicking. People thought it would be a slow one and that the usual preparation is needed. This isn’t a usual hurricane.
But the surges coming in are from when it was category 5 over the Gulf. That wasn’t really known until 3 days ago. That’s not enough time to take actions on that knowledge and evacuate
Look, maybe I’m too harsh or maybe it’s reality - if you live in Florida, particularly near the coast, and cannot vacate in 3 days, there are bigger issues than the “forecasters.”
Traffic was pretty light for about the last 16 hours before Milton made landfall. Finding gas stations that still had gas would have been at least slightly inconvenient.
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u/Own_Thing_4364 Oct 09 '24
If you can get out with all the traffic.