VENICE, Fla. — Thousands of Rochester natives either living or wintering on Florida’s Gulf Coast are bracing for the impact of Hurricane Milton. While some have decided to evacuate, others are planning to ride it out.   

“Where I am, they told us mandatory evacuation but there’s a lot of people that aren’t leaving,” said Shirley Quins, a Rochester resident evacuating her mobile home community to Ocala, Florida.

“The highways have been very busy, bumper to bumper,” Quins says, “I think everybody is, from what I understand from people who’ve been down here for many years, they’ve said… they’re all worried because they’ve never seen nothing like this.”

Brandon Markson, a Pittsford native, is a PhD student at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“There’s already been some announcements that gas trucks aren’t going to be coming downstate to refuel until after the storm, same thing with food trucks. There’s only so much that can be done ahead of time to prepare and looking at all the options, it looked like to me, it just felt more secure to say I’m going to get out,” Markson says.

Markson was able to get a flight out of Gainesville Tuesday at 8 p.m., he’s just hoping it doesn’t get cancelled. He said the flights he was looking at were around $3,000 to get home to Rochester before tomorrow night. He ended up booking a first class ticket that was cheaper.

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