Less than a day after Hurricane Milton hit Florida as a Category 3 storm, nearly 2,000 petrol stations there are out of fuel. About 25% of the nearly 8,000 outlets in the state don’t have any gasoline, according to statistics from GasBuddy.
According to GasBuddy data as of Thursday morning, Sarasota has roughly 44% of concentrated outages, followed by Tampa and St. Petersburg at nearly 63%.
According to the data, almost 37% of stations in Fort Myers, Naples, and 36.5% of stations in Gainesville are fuel-exhausted.
Earlier this week, residents in the area filled up their tanks and headed out of Milton’s route, leading to reports of gas shortages at outlets in sections of central Florida.
Some people stocked up on gasoline to power backup generators in case of a power loss.
President of Lipow Oil Associates Andy Lipow, “things might get a little bit worse before they get better as the consumer will be headed to the gas station to fill up sooner than resupply will come into the area.”
According to Lipow, gas stations will likely run out of fuel for the next day or two, but by the following week, things should improve and tanker ship arrival schedules should return to normal. About 2.5 tankers a day, carrying gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel, arrive in Florida.
“Consumers went out and filled up their tanks in advance of the storm, accelerating demand. They will probably be at home the next few days and won’t have to fill up again for a while,” Lipow stated.
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Throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, fuel trucks from Port Tampa and SeaPort Manatee were accompanied by Florida Highway Patrol troopers to fueling stations in the Tampa area.
More tankers, each with a capacity of more than 10 million gallons, are en route, according to Lipow. Tampa is expecting one tanker on Thursday night.
According to Lipow, two tankers are anticipated to arrive in the Miami area on Friday and another on Saturday. He added that Fort Myers imports certain goods from the Miami region.
