Hundreds take shelter at Virgil Mills Elementary School ahead of Hurricane Milton, in Palmetto, Florida. People spent the night at a school with their pets, sleeping on air mattresses. Photo / Getty
Hundreds take shelter at Virgil Mills Elementary School ahead of Hurricane Milton, in Palmetto, Florida. People spent the night at a school with their pets, sleeping on air mattresses. Photo / Getty
As thousands of Florida residents evacuated to safer ground ahead of Hurricane Milton this week, one woman went viral for a series of TikTok posts explaining why she and her family planned to stay put.
Amanda Moss said in more than a half-dozen videos since Saturday that she doesn’t haveenough money to evacuate herself, her husband, her six children, her four French bulldogs and her mother-in-law from the Fort Myers area, despite official warnings to evacuate.
“Mom anxiety is real,” she said through tears in one video, adding: “We don’t have the money to evacuate, and where am I evacuating to?”
Moss said she has a seven-passenger Chevrolet Suburban that would need to fit nine people and the four dogs. Driving out of state would take almost 10 hours, she said, and she worries about becoming stranded without petrol, or being on the road in Florida when the hurricane makes landfall.
Moss said she doesn’t have the money to pack her family on a flight, into multiple hotel rooms or into an Airbnb.
An elderly couple takes shelter at Virgil Mills Elementary School with their dog ahead of Hurricane Milton, in Palmetto, Florida. Photo / via Getty
Many TikTok users have criticised Moss’ decision after state officials tabbed parts of Lee County, where Fort Myers is located, within mandatory evacuation zones. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor (D) told CNN that people who don’t flee evacuation zones are “going to die”.
However, others on social media have defended Moss’ choice, writing in comments that traffic, hotel and flight prices, fuel shortages, and family and work obligations are reasons they’re also staying in Florida for the Category 5 hurricane, which could be the strongest hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area in a century.
Many state residents are evacuating for the second time within the past three weeks, after Category 4 Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 230 people.
With Milton approaching, social media video has shown bumper-to-bumper traffic this week on Interstate 75, which runs along Florida’s west coast and into Georgia. Florida officials said on X on Tuesday that they were escorting fuel trucks along evacuation routes for gas stations that were out of fuel.
Those are among the challenges that some state residents, including Moss, have encountered when deciding whether to evacuate on short notice.
A car drives through the heavy rain in Fort Myers, Florida, on October 9 as Hurricane Milton approaches. Photo / AFP
Moss has a home in Tampa, she said on TikTok, but the hurricane is also expected to strike there. Multiple social media users offered Moss and her family homes to stay in outside of Florida, but Moss said she didn’t feel safe sleeping in a stranger’s house.
“If I could get out, I would, but where are we going?” Moss said in one video. “Everything is booked. … Unless you’re hopping on a plane and evacuating your family, where is everybody going?”
Moss did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Post on Tuesday.
A mother and daughter in Sarasota, Florida, told the Post that they’re staying at their apartment, citing similar reasons as Moss.
Carol Newhart, 51, said she’s worried they’ll run out of gas. Hailey Berlick, 22, said they can’t find available hotel rooms that are affordable. They said they don’t have crates to take their dog and three cats to a shelter. Plus, Newhart said, they have a relative in Arcadia, Florida, who has a collapsed lung and is dependent on electricity to run his medical equipment.
“It’s scary – we’ve never had to prepare this much,” Berlick said. “I’ve never seen people so freaked out.”
As Hurricane Milton approaches, we have been working tirelessly on precautions to ensure the security of our staff, animals, and the Zoo itself. pic.twitter.com/5yGnUmsWSS
Staff members at ZooTampa even made efforts to protect their animals, moving them into hurricane-proof barns.
Moss said on TikTok that she also has prepared, picking up a generator for her house, where she said the windows are designed to withstand hurricane winds. She said she loaded her car with supplies in case the family has no choice but to leave.
During Category 4 Hurricane Ian in 2022, Moss said, water rose to her home’s front door but didn’t enter the house. She said she hopes for a similar outcome with Milton.
“This isn’t a pride or ego thing,” Moss said. “I’m just doing what I need to do for my … family, and hopefully that’s the best. I don’t know.”
