TAMPA, Fla. — With Hurricane Milton churning closer to Florida’s Gulf Coast, the search for shelter far from the water is becoming more challenging.
“I came here to protect my son and to ride out the storm,” said Abdul Hashmi just after he was able to book a room Tuesday at the Holiday Inn near the University of South Florida.
Johana Cordova wasn’t as lucky when she tried booking at the same hotel. When authorities knocked on her door Tuesday morning, she was told to evacuate from her Tampa neighborhood.
“My family's staying here at the hotel, and they told me they might have a room, but nothing,” Cordova told us as she walked back to her car.
As the major hurricane fuels mandatory evacuations and high emotions, inland hotels across Tampa Bay are going fast. The state is working with several hotel chains to cut rates, but there’s only so much room to go around.
At the LaQuinta Inn and Suites near the University of South Florida, all 109 rooms are booked, and many have been occupied since Hurricane Helene made landfall two weeks ago.
“We have some construction crews from the previous storm, so we were kind of already booked at the same time. Now we’re sold out until Friday,” said General Manager Justin Craven.
With so much demand for hotel rooms and not enough of them, the state is now using warehouses as shelters that can temporarily shelter thousands of people.
“These are big category 5 type warehouses that can have thousands of people,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a press conference early Tuesday.
DeSantis described the warehouses as located along evacuation routes near I-4 in Polk County and I-75 in Pasco and Hillsborough Counties.
The warehouses accompany 36-county-operated shelters for evacuees with nowhere to go. The state will begin by opening four warehouse shelters and adding more if demand is there. According to Governor DeSantis, 14 warehouses have been identified.
“But these are designed to be shelters of last resort,” said DeSantis.
Johanna Cordova has her sights set on a hotel, hoping a room opens before it’s too late.
“I’m nervous; I freaked out this morning. We’ll keep shopping, I guess,” Cordova said.
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