As officials issue their final pleas to residents to evacuate areas of Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival, some Floridians are choosing to stay. One of them is Stephanie Livermore, 41, who lives in a “high and dry” condo on the seventh floor in downtown St. Petersburg.
“Getting out of here is no joke,” Livermore told Yahoo News. “There wasn’t enough fuel, people were running out of gas on the highway. You don’t always know exactly the amount of impact an area is going to get, so you can even move yourself into a worst-case scenario.”
The area is not in a mandatory evacuation zone or a flood zone. It’s within the “cone of uncertainty” in Hurricane Milton’s projected trajectory — meaning the city might not experience a direct hit despite being part of the Tampa Bay area.
That’s part of why Livermore and her husband aren’t evacuating, she told Yahoo News. Neither are several of the tenants who live on her building’s floor.
Livermore has lived in Florida since 2008 and said she’s experienced tropical storms and hurricanes (she was out of town when Hurricane Helene hit two weeks ago) — but, according to Livermore, they wind up “not being too bad” for her. The couple did consider evacuating early on but ultimately decided against it because “it didn’t make sense” for them. Livermore, who is a veterinarian, is also housing eight pets in her condo, some of which belong to friends who did evacuate.
“Could I have left? Certainly,” she said. “Logistically, it’s difficult. The longer you wait, it gets more and more challenging to actually go. But for me, I don’t feel like I’m in a situation where it would be terribly risky for me to ride it out here.”
Livermore’s husband works in the restaurant industry, so they were able to easily get food supplies that could last them for several days. The couple stocked up on bottled water and pet food. Paper products sold out very quickly in their area, so Livermore is slightly concerned about that.
“There’s really nothing you can do other than try to keep yourself safe,” she said. “You just have to kind of take it minute to minute and get through the storm and then deal with the aftermath however you can and just help each other.”
