Florida drivers waited in line and, in some cases, ran empty while trying to refuel their vehicles during the evacuation during Hurricane Milton.
As of Friday morning, nearly 29% of Florida’s gas stations were sold out, according to Patrick De Haan, gas analyst at GasBuddy. That means about 2,320 of the state’s roughly 8,000 stations were out of fuel Friday morning.
“The situation might get slightly worse before it starts to get better,” he told the social networking site X.
Seventy-three percent of gas stations in the Tampa and St. Petersburg areas were out of gas, according to GasBuddy. In Sarasota, 54% of stations were empty, followed by 42% of stations in Fort Myers and Naples, 40% of stations in Gainesville, and 34% of stations in Orlando and Daytona Beach, according to fuel tracking site.
Fuel supplies are arriving, but experts still say motorists who don’t need gas should wait to get to a station.
“If you don’t need to go to the gas station, don’t,” Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, told CBS MoneyWatch. “You shouldn’t miss refueling.”
How long will it take to refuel?
Most of Orlando’s gas supply is shipped through the Port of Tampa, where there are 10 operating terminals. Gas from major oil companies is then transported to Orlando via a pipeline. The port is still working to restore power to the terminals so they can be supplied, Lipow said.
“You have to bring back workers, terminal operators and truck drivers, and the Coast Guard has to inspect the canal for debris and replace all the navigation buoys. All of this is happening as we speak,” he declared. According to him, gas deliveries by tanker truck will not take place until Sunday at the earliest.
Ports serving the rest of Florida are open, he noted.
“It’s going to get better. They’re going to have gas,” he said. “There is plenty of gas flowing to Florida, but the biggest obstacle to resupply right now is getting power back to the Port of Tampa.”
Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), said he expects the “gas crisis” to be fully resolved within 72 hours.
“By Tuesday or Wednesday, things will be back to normal,” he told CBS MoneyWatch.
