‘Take what you need’: Gas officials ask drivers to be mindful of how much gas they’re taking in Florida

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Millions of Floridians are under evacuation orders, and many are heading north to get out of the storm’s path. All of the extra traffic has some gas stations running on empty, with covers becoming more and more common on pumps.

GasBuddy reported Wednesday morning that nearly 21.6% of stations in Florida don’t have gas.

That includes

• 30% of gas stations in Fort Myers
• 46% in Tampa
• 17% in Orlando
• 25% in Gainesville
• Nearly 1.5% in Jacksonville

Gov. Ron DeSantis says fuel continues to arrive in Florida with 1.2 million gallons of gas and diesel en route to the state, it will just take time to get to the stations.

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CoralPatrick De Haan is a Petroleum Analyst with GasBuddy and said there should not be as many outages associated with Jacksonville.

Further south where lines of cars are fleeing the Tampa Bay area, fuel and safety are top of mind. Those areas are seeing shortages. GasBuddy called them outages.

“The outages are really prevalent in Tampa, areas like Cape Coralis, Fort Myers are seeing, in some instances, up to 50% of stations out. It could be higher than that,” De Hann said.

Traffic coming from those areas on I-95 is likely to stop and fill up in Jacksonville or nearby communities.

Mayor Donna Deegan stepped to the podium at the Emergency Operations Center to address fuel supply in the city.

“I want to be very velar there is no shortage of gas in Jacksonville. In fact, there is no shortage of gas in the state of Florida,” she said.

DeSantis spoke on the issue Tuesday as well.

“Lines at gas stations have been long. Gas stations are running out quicker than they normally would and so that is causing the state of Florida to assist with the mission to get fuel to the gas stations,” he said.

For this reason, AAA officials are asking people not to be gas guzzlers.

“Gasoline deliveries will continue in the run-up to the storm and then will resume after the storm passes. Do not hoard gasoline. Just take what you need,” Mike Jenkins of AAA said.

If you want to look at the gas outages across the state, you can visit GasBuddy. There is a “Find Gas” tool that will help you look for gas.