Mass evacuations continue ahead of Hurricane Milton's landfall

WASHINGTON - Many Floridians fleeing their homes as Hurricane Milton makes its way toward the state’s Gulf Coast were arriving in the DMV Tuesday. 

Flights from Tampa have been canceled while some other airports in Florida are still open for now helping to get people out of Milton's way.

Down at the baggage claim at Regan National Airport Tuesday afternoon, passengers were arriving from a sold-out flight from West Palm Beach. Among those fleeing their Florida homes Renee Clayton, who also has a place in Charles County.

 "The sad part about it is I left a lot of my friends down there. I had to come back here.  I'm scared," Clayton said. 

 "It's probably one of the largest evacuations in Florida history maybe so just driving north was not an option."

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 Also getting out of Milton's projected path were Joanna Marino and Regan Cruz, evacuating with their daughter Giana and two dogs.

"We're just praying there's still a house there, something to go back to," Cruz said. "So we'll see."

Kelli Sweeting and her family are staying put — for now at least — at home in Sarasota south of Tampa on Florida's Gulf Coast.

 "It’s a really tough decision when you have a family on whether or not to stay or leave," Sweeting told FOX 5. "We shuttered outside of the house, made it enjoyable for them with plywood and then I gave them some spray paint. I don’t want them to be scared."

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Sweeting says she’s still waiting to make the final call on whether she and her family will stay or go.

 "We would probably leave if we feel like it’s going to strengthen and then and then stay a Category 5. I don’t think I really want to put my children through that kind of trauma I don’t really wanna go through that either so we’ve talked about leaving in the middle of night," she said. 

 But images of clogged highways heading away from Milton's target area on the west coast of central Florida have discouraged some from leaving.

 "With the roads right now gridlocked, being cooped up in a car for however many hours with three massive dogs in a car that’s not prepared to withstand hurricane is ultimately not in our best interest, we feel," Casey Corley said. 

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 Corley says she and her husband have fortified their bathrooms and laundry room at their home in Sefner near Tampa. Other Tampa-area families have packed up and left.

 "When we go back, it will not be what we remember, for sure," Vanessa Silvana said. "I think the key message is wherever you have to go get there."

 Silvana and her family have rented one of the last available AirBnb's in Fort Lauderdale, fearing all that debris left behind by Helene will become damaging... perhaps deadly projectiles with Milton's winds.

 "I’m just praying. I’m just praying that it slows down. I pray that it, you know, just all the things that we can do to just not die," Silvana said. "I just don’t want so many more people to die."