The week I nearly lost everything

Hurricane Milton tore through Florida this week. Tornadoes, floods and storm surges have left a trail of destruction and displaced millions of people – at least 16 people have died.

Anne and Sam Frost are Brits who moved to Tampa in 2023. They have a five-month-old baby called Georgia.

On Monday, after learning that their town was in the route of the hurricane, they evacuated home and travelled to Jacksonville.

“I’ve never felt anything like this, to know by week’s end your whole world could be different, not in a good way and not by choice. It’s like grief without the death,” Anne told the BBC.

While stuck in traffic with others fleeing, struggling to find gas and caring for their child they have been waiting and watching anxiously to see if they would lose their home.

Anne shared her diary from the week with us below.

Sam was fifth in the queue for sand bags at 06:00 (11:00 BST). When it finally opened at 07:45 (12:45 BST) the queue was in the hundreds.

He also got plywood for the windows – our local hardware store had a collection point.

We have done all we can to protect our home and our belongings and now we protect ourselves and our daughter by leaving.

We left at around 20:00 (01:00 BST). We passed several dry gas stations and one with a queue formed of more than 40 cars.

As we drove we passed blue “evacuation route” signs. We joined The I-75 which had heavy traffic, like daytime rush hour.

We came off at Withlacoochee and there was another 30-car queue for gas. We were going to stop for food but the Wendy’s drive-thru had about 30 cars queued up.

Waze, a navigation app, kept us off the I-75, travelling through little towns on the 301.

We travelled down winding roads reminiscent of the UK before stopping for food at a McDonald’s struggling to keep up with the unusually high number of customers.

We stopped at the 7-11 for gas but even here, in what feels like the middle of nowhere with no evacuation order in place (yet), it’s all out.

We finally found a gas station with some pumps available and were able to get another half a tank, but as we drove on we passed more which were completely out.

We have arrived in Wildwood and the hotel has a sign on the door – no vacancies at all. We are very lucky to have booked in advance. Tomorrow we will head to Jacksonville.

We set off from Wildwood at 11:00 (16:00 BST). We were warned to stay off the I-75 by the hotel staff.

Waze added 30 minutes to our journey several times. We mainly stayed on the 301 but came off it to avoid standstill traffic at Lawtey.

We passed houses that would have no chance of surviving if it were to hit this far north.

It all took its toll: our fussy baby, the constant nursery rhymes, and getting lost as Waze tried to help us avoid traffic.

It’s been amazing as a Brit to see the scale of the logistical efforts that go into preparing for hurricanes.

From the enormous dump trucks full of sand to the tankers of fuel being brought in; shelters set up in schools and free Uber rides – it’s a remarkable effort.

Teco (the energy supplier) has mobilised 4,500 linesmen to be ready to restore power.

We’re in Jacksonville now and we just have to wait and watch the spaghetti models (a forecasting tool to give an idea of where a storm could make an impact).

As someone commented online, “we don’t pray it hits somewhere else, we pray it gets weaker.”

Wednesday is spent waiting for updates and watching the radars. The skies are grey and it’s raining in Jacksonville.

Hope fades instantly as I hear the reporters say how catastrophic this hurricane will be when it hits.

Our house is predicted to get the north side of the eye of the storm – all the wind and rain, so flooding is a risk from overly-saturated ground. And then we see that the storm is predicted to hit north of Sarasota, basically in the bay itself.

Any further, tiny jump means we will get surge water from the bay as well. I have to stop watching. It is an anxious wait.

At around 21:00 (02:00 BST) the storm carries east when the predicted path was north, which means when it hits it will be south of the bay.

For us, it means the bay drains and we will avoid surge water, but for those south it means they’re getting that water, wind and rain.

Then come the reports of people who remained in their homes calling for emergency services to get them out, but once hurricane force winds hit the emergency services will not be sent out.

I watch the cameras on our house and can see the bushes and trees moving. But as the storm moves through we still have a house intact. It feels incredible, how unlikely it was that we’d have anything left and how close to it we came.

I woke up at 04:00 (09:00 BST) and checked the home cameras – they were still on! And we had no flooding! We’ve lost two fences but it’s a small price to pay.

We live near a school so they buried the power cables in the area a few years ago and you realise what a difference that makes, but many are not so lucky as 74% of our county are out of power.

There’s flooding as far away from the coast as Plant City and Lakeland so I don’t know how we avoided it.

Authorities have closed access to Pinellas County entirely while they assess damage. Our county has boil-water and conserve water notices.

Tampa has an area-by-area re-entry plan and again I’m in awe at the logistical efforts and planning. The pictures of damage so close to us and in familiar places are devastating and we are feeling so very fortunate and grateful.

Our plans have changed as we can get home earlier now if we want to. So instead of staying another night in Jacksonville we will set off for Tampa via Orlando.