On Thursday, at least 25 of the 114 rooms at the Red Roof Inn in Commerce were occupied by Floridians who evacuated earlier this week to dodge Hurricane Milton. The Category 3 storm leveled the Sarasota/Tampa Bay area Wednesday and left more than a million people without power.
The hotel’s desk clerk, Jennifer Glass, said evacuees started to arrive late Tuesday night and into Wednesday afternoon. The Burton family was one of them.
The family hadn’t fled from hurricanes in the past. But with their home in the eye of a storm expected to bring 100 mph winds, this one was different. After some convincing from her family, Jane and her husband – along with her two sons and her sister – packed their bags and then loaded into two vehicles and aimed it north.
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They drove over 500 miles from their home in Palmetto – a city about 45 minutes south of Tampa – and into Georgia. They drove for 13 hours until they arrived in Commerce earlier this week.
“We’ve never left before,” Jane Burton said. “We boarded up and sat there and joked the whole way through the night.”
The family received photos of their home after Milton passed. While it’s still standing, Burton said her neighbor’s home across the street lost its roof. The neighborhood is without electricity, she said, and the area is expected to be without power for another week.
Over anything else, the family is thankful for their wellbeing and for the journey to Georgia together.
“Well, our family’s a lot closer than we were (after the journey),” Burton said.
If they had to do it again, Burton said Commerce would make the list for an evacuation destination a second time.
