Gas stations are empty as panic grips Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton By Reuters

By Shariq Khan

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A growing number of gas retailers displayed empty signs on Tuesday as panic buying gripped Florida, where residents braced for a monster hurricane to make landfall.

Hurricane Milton was downgraded to a Category 4 storm on Tuesday as it passed Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula en route to Florida’s Gulf Coast, where more than 1 million people were ordered to evacuate. Parts of Florida are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which hit the state in late September.

The storm is expected to arrive on Wednesday.

About 15.8 percent of Florida gas stations were out of fuel by 11:10 a.m. ET (1510 GMT), compared with almost no outages the previous morning, according to data from fuel market tracker GasBuddy.

As people rush to get out of harm’s way, demand for gasoline has skyrocketed, said Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy.com.

“These numbers will continue to grow very quickly,” De Haan said. Milton’s path across Tampa Bay causes problems for major fuel distribution networks, he added.

Florida is the third largest consumer of gasoline in the United States, but there are no refineries in the state, making it dependent on water-based imports. More than 17 million tons of oil and natural gas-related products move through Tampa Bay in a typical year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Tampa and most other Florida ports were closed to vessel traffic Tuesday, U.S. Coast Guard reports showed.

TERMINALS CLOSED

Kinder Morgan (NYSE: ) has shut down its Central Florida Pipeline system, which moves refined products between Tampa and Orlando, the company said in an emailed statement. It closed all fuel delivery terminals in Tampa, but trucks are expected to be able to pick up fuel from wholesale shelves in Orlando until winds exceed 35 miles per hour.

Fuel trucks cannot safely deliver at wind speeds above this threshold, explained wholesale distributor Mansfield. These conditions are expected to lead to a near shutdown of all fuel deliveries in Florida by Wednesday.

CITGO Petroleum is also closing its Tampa terminal, the company told Reuters.

Mansfield moved all Florida markets to its “Code Red” classification, requiring 72 hours’ notice to make new deliveries.

They also require 48-hour notices for new deliveries in South Georgia.

Milton could be the biggest disruptor to Florida’s gasoline supply since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, said Tom Kloza, chief of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service.

“I would be hard-pressed to come up with an area that might be more prone to persistent problems should a Cat3 or greater storm affect infrastructure,” Kloza said. “It’s hard to anticipate any tankers or barges coming into Tampa Bay until Sunday or Monday,” he added.