By Justine Griffin for the Chronicle of the Horse
Published Oct. 21, 2024
With less than 48 hours before Hurricane Milton would barrel toward my home as a major Category 4 hurricane, I sat in a rural gas station outside of Ocala, Florida, and bawled my eyes out.
My truck had just 22 miles of gas left in the tank when I pulled into a long line of cars and trucks filling their tanks, generators and gas cans in a frenzy that sadly felt too familiar to me as a lifelong Floridian. Emotions ran high less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused mass devastation through Florida on its way to North Carolina.
People were taking this one seriously.
The highways were gridlocked with cars heading north. The World Equestrian Center—Ocala was at capacity, with a waiting list for horses and their owners trying to get out of the path of a storm, which would reach catastrophic Category 5 status before it made landfall.
This was the third gas station I’d pulled into after dropping my horse off at a friend’s farm. The one before ran out of gas just three cars ahead of my turn at the pump. The first had no gas left at all. I had evacuated my Thoroughbred gelding Mikey here ahead of Milton’s arrival. None of the horses at my urban boarding barn in Tampa Bay were evacuated for Helene. But for Milton, few owners wanted them to stay.
As an editor at the Tampa Bay Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, covering hurricane season is a competitive sport. I’d learn in the days to come that Hurricane Milton was about to be the Super Bowl of the 2024 season.