With Irma having weakened into inland rainstorms, Floridians are beginning a mass migration back to a battered, water-logged state where millions remain without power.
But traffic maps, social media reports, gasoline trackers and the ever-reliable eye test all said it wasn't an easy trip Tuesday and won't be in the days ahead.
Stephanie Clegg Troxell, right, and her family pose at the acreage where their animals are being kept Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, in Bradyville, Tenn. The family evacuated New Port Richey, Fla., before Hurricane Irma hit. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
"As soon as we hit the state line, it was traffic jams and accidents," said Elizabeth Priore of Fort Lauderdale, as she continued her return drive from Alpharetta, Georgia, late Tuesday afternoon.
Priore said she had managed to find gas and open restaurants along the way, and she said Interstate 95 south of Jacksonville was "moving well."
But traffic cameras elsewhere in the state, particularly along Interstate 75 where it meets the Florida Turnpike 60 miles north of Orlando, showed gridlock.
"We were expecting a nightmare," Priore said, explaining that she decided it was better to brave it than to wait.
Other Floridians are opting to wait it out, fearing the congestion, lane closures, fender benders, shuttered restaurants and gas stations without fuel.
"We're not leaving until Thursday because of the gas situation," said Nick Westbrook, a Coral Gables resident who has settled in Knoxville, Tennessee with his wife and children.
"We have friends on the road, and they're letting us know it's just what I feared it would be."
Stephanie Clegg Troxell, second from left, and her daughters Lily, 10, left, and McKendree, 14, right, tend to their mini-horses at the acreage where the family's animals are being kept Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, in Bradyville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Adam Bolanos, a high school teacher from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says he's talking to neighbors and friends on the road, particularly about fuel access. "The shortage is very real," he said.
Bolanos and his family — a three-car caravan with multiple generations and pets — also is waiting in Tennessee.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other authorities are urging evacuees not to be in a rush to return, particularly those who live in the hardest-hit areas, from Key West and the southwest coastline near Naples to the flooded neighborhoods of Jacksonville in state's northeast corner.
As power crews dispersed Tuesday, an estimated 15 million Floridians — about 5.6 million residential and commercial customers — were without electricity. Bridges were being inspected around the state, power outages left traffic signals inoperable on key surface roads, and some roadways remained closed due to standing water, downed power lines or debris.
Still, interstates across the southeast filled with traffic, with metro areas in multiple states reporting backups and slower-than-usual traffic.
The gasoline monitoring app GasBuddy reported Tuesday morning that Florida stations were beginning to replenish their supplies, which were depleted from a mass exodus after Scott asked more than 6.5 million residents to evacuate.
Emma Troxell, 13, sits with Tank, a 2-year-old pot bellied pig, as family members pose at the acreage where their animals are being kept Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, in Bradyville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
The shortages, though, remained high in several Panhandle and northern Florida locales: 62 percent of stations in Gainesville had no gas; 47 percent in Jacksonville; 51 percent in Tallahassee. Those are key junctures for travelers looking to return to the southern peninsula.
Christopher Krebs, head of infrastructure protection for the federal Homeland Security Department, told reporters Tuesday in Washington that Harvey, which made landfall in Texas and Louisiana in late August, took a "significant amount" of the nation's refining capacity offline and affected distribution. "As a result," he said, "there may be some fuel supply shortages throughout the Southeast."
In Georgia, transportation officials hoped to ease the traffic burden. They announced plans to suspend construction-related lane closures on interstates and state routes throughout the entire state until Wednesday.
But Irma didn't allow that everywhere. South Carolina road officials said they had to close a lane of southbound Interstate 95 because the storm's winds apparently damaged a culvert that required repair. The resulting backups had already started Tuesday morning.
Some Floridians say they have no choice but to begin their trip home now.
Stephanie Clegg Troxell rounds up Tank, her 2-year-old pot bellied pig, at the acreage where her family's animals are being kept Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, in Bradyville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Pam Szymanksi of Fort Myers, Florida, had to leave her Atlanta hotel Tuesday. "They're booked," she said, adding that she planned to stop in Valdosta, Georgia, for at least one night with her mother, two children and two dogs.
"I don't want to run into closed roads," she said of the final 350 miles between Valdosta and her home, "but I want to get home and start cleaning up."
Stephanie Clegg Troxell remained near Nashville, Tennessee, where her family caravan includes three cars and a trailer, five adults, five children, 13 dogs, three mini-horses and a pet pig. The trek from New Port Richey, Florida, north of Tampa Bay, took more than 17 hours, beginning last Wednesday.
She said she's watching another storm, Jose, before deciding when to leave. Jose is still offshore well east of the U.S. mainland.
"I'm trying to sneak out when it's not 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour-plus winds," she said.
Meanwhile, she's got another worry: a homesick pig. Tank, the 70-pound pet, usually lounges beside the pool in Florida. In Tennessee, Troxell said, "He's missing his tropical scenery."
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blamed Donald Trump for Florida's upcoming abortion ban and other restrictions across the country that have imperiled access to care for pregnant women, arguing Trump has created a “healthcare crisis for women all over this country.”
Biden's campaign events at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa placed the president in the epicenter of the latest battle over abortion restrictions. The state’s six-week abortion ban is poised to go into effect May 1 at the same time that Florida voters are gearing up for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. Biden said that millions of women are facing “pain and cruelty."
“But it’s not inevitable. We can stop it. When you vote, we can stop it," he said.
The president is seeking to capitalize on the unceasing momentum against abortion restrictions nationwide to not only buoy his reelection bid in battleground states he won in 2020, but also to go on the offensive against Trump in states that the presumptive Republican nominee won four years ago. One of those states is Florida, where Biden lost to Trump by 3.3 percentage points.
On Tuesday, he chronicled increasing medical concerns for women in the two years since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections.
“There was one person who was responsible for this nightmare," Biden said. “And he’s acknowledged it and he brags about it — Donald Trump.”
Biden said Trump, who has publicly waffled on his abortion views, and of late has said abortion is a matter for states to decide, is concerned voters will now hold him accountable.
“Folks, the bad news for Trump is that we are going to hold him accountable,” Biden said.
At the same time, advocates on the ground say support for abortion access cuts across parties. They're intent on making the issue as nonpartisan as possible as they work to scrounge up at least 60% support from voters for the ballot initiative.
That could mean in some cases, Florida voters would split their tickets, backing GOP candidates while supporting the abortion measure.
“I think that normal people are aware that a candidate campaign is really different than a ballot initiative,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which gathered signatures to put the abortion question before voters. “You can vote for your preferred candidate of any political party and still not agree with them on every single issue."
Brenzel continued, “This gives voters an opportunity to have their message heard on one policy platform.”
On the same day the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure could go before voters, it also upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban. That subsequently cleared the way for the new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before women know they are pregnant, to go into effect next week.
Organizers of the abortion ballot measure say they collected nearly 1.5 million signatures to put the issue before voters, although the state stopped counting at just under a million. Roughly 891,500 signatures were required. Of the total number of signatures, about 35% were from either registered Republican voters or those not affiliated with a party, organizers said.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, said if the abortion ballot initiative becomes branded as a partisan effort, “it just makes it more challenging to reach 60%.” Eskamani, who worked at Planned Parenthood before running for political office, said she is encouraging the Biden administration to focus broadly on the impact of a six-week ban and let the ballot measure speak for itself.
“At the end of the day, the ballot initiative is going to be a multimillion-dollar campaign that stands very strongly on its own,” Eskamani said.
Trump's campaign did not respond to a question on whether the former president, a Florida voter, would oppose or support the ballot measure. In an NBC interview last September, Trump called Florida’s six-week ban “terrible.” But he has repeatedly highlighted the three conservative-leaning justices he chose for the high court who cleared the way to overturn Roe.
Republicans were dismissive of the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to use abortion as a political cudgel, arguing that other issues will matter more with voters in November.
“Biden must have forgotten that thousands of Americans have fled from extremist Democrat policies to prosperous and pro-life states like Florida," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.
Still, Trump and other Republicans are aware that voter backlash against increasing restrictions could be a serious liability this fall.
Abortion-rights supporters have won every time the issue has been put before voters, including in solidly conservative states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio. Last month, a Democrat in a suburban state House district in Alabama flipped the seat from Republican control by campaigning on abortion rights, weeks after in vitro fertilization services had been paused in the state.
Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said Florida will be a competitive state on the presidential level “because of the extremism that has come out of Florida.” No Democrat has won the state on the presidential level since 2012, but state party officials have found some glimmers of political change in vastly smaller races, such as the open Jacksonville mayor’s race last May that saw a Democrat win in what was once a solidly Republican city.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference before the visit that the abortion amendment was written in a way to deliberately mislead voters, an argument that the state Supreme Court disagreed with when it approved the ballot language.
“All I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling and in November we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs," he said.
Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters cheer as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
People listen as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Men 4 Choice" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried makes a selfie photo with attendees waiting to hear President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting in the White House, Jan. 22, 2024, in Washington. Biden is traveling to Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, April 23, just days before the state's six-week abortion ban goes into effect, to make his case against abortion restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Flip Florida Blue" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
