Governor suspends tolls, suggests Tallahassee as a landing spot for Milton evacuees

High tolls taking their toll on commuters? Florida lawmakers want to help with that.

As Hurricane Milton menaces Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is suspending tolls for a good part of the state. He’s also suggesting that those leaving their homes should go north.

“Effective at 10:30 a.m., we are suspending all tolls in western part of Central Florida into Central Florida, as well as Alligator Alley,” DeSantis detailed at the Emergency Operations Center.

The Governor expects landfall “Wednesday or Thursday,” and though he typically says people don’t need to go far for storms, this one may be a different story.

If they are leaving, the northern part of the state would be a good option, according to the Governor.

“People sometimes will say, where do you evacuate to? They just want to get out. They don’t want to just stay local and they want to get out,” DeSantis said.

“Well, I think that probably the easiest route would probably be to go north if you’re in Central Florida because the way the storm looks, it looks like it’s going to have more of an impact on Central and southern Florida. Most of these places in Tallahassee and northern Florida likely aren’t going to see as significant of impact,” DeSantis said.

Evacuating to the south is not the Governor’s recommendation, given a track that “could shift further south.”

“If you do evacuate south, you may be ending up going to where you’re going to have a lot of the storm anyways. We saw that with Hurricane Ian. So just be mindful of that. But again, you don’t have to go hundreds of miles. That is not required. Any place that’s going to be open is a shelter. Florida hotels that are built, you know, within the last 20 to 30 years are all going to be able to withstand hurricane-force winds.”

Division of Emergency Management head Kevin Guthrie also suggested that Jacksonville could be an evacuation destination.