‘Irma’ evacuees face hard road home to Florida

The rapidly rising Santa Fe River could cause fresh chaos for Hurricane Irma evacuees returning home to South Florida.

According to the Florida Department of Transportation, the I-75 bridge over the Sante Fe River near mile marker 408 in northern Florida, while safe and passable at the moment, could be completely inundated.

Even with the bridge fully open, evacuees are facing a tough road home.

Many parts of the state are still covered either in flood water or debris and more than 2 million are still without power. Gas stations around the state don’t have fuel and airports are running at very limited capacity, if at all, as of Tuesday morning.

Traffic Jams, Gas Shortages 

Traffic jams had already formed by mid-morning throughout Florida and southern Georgia, as millions of evacuated residents flooded back into and through the state in the aftermath of Irma, the Miami Herald reports.

“We’re trying to encourage people to stay off the roads,” FHP spokesperson Frady told the Herald. “Conditions are just now being assessed.”

In Georgia, the department of transportation said Tuesday morning that traffic volumes on I-75 south were already triple what’s normal, WABE reports.

All of those drivers are taking a big risk of running out of gas the further south they get.

As of late Monday, more than half of the gas stations in Miami/Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Tallahassee are completely out of gas, according to GasBuddy. In both Orlando and Fort Myers/Naples the number stands at 47 percent.

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Source: weather.com