Hurricane Milton and EVs.

[flyct]

We have 2 homes in Florida affected by Hurricane Milton. Both lost power. One had power restored 2 days ago and the other is still without power.

We evacuated our primary house which is 20 miles south of Tampa to our cabin which is 125 miles inland. The eye of the storm passed right over our main house just south of Tampa. While we stayed in the cabin which only had tropical force winds. The Lightning powered the cabin connected to the generator inlet I had installed several months prior, so we had essential circuits with power. What a blessing that was. One of our cabin neighbors has a whole house generator and let us charge the Lightning to top it off.

On the way back home all gas stations didn’t have power but FPL set up a mobile charge station and they kindly topped off the Lightning for us.

20 minutes before arriving to our west coast home it had power restored. We charged the Lightning at home to 90%. The few local gas’s stations with gas have lines as long as 1/4 mile.

Having an EV with gas shortages was an unexpected advantage.

Here are some pictures of our pool cage that didn’t survive. Also included a picture of our Lightning getting a charge from the FPL mobile charge unit.

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[Runaway Tractor]

Carrying around 130kWh is indeed extremely useful.

That said, you experienced a lot of luck with the convenient places to recharge. This should not be considered the norm. In a disaster, your ability to recharge is just as vulnerable as your ability to fill up on gas. Everyone needs to keep that in mind.

 

[Madtroniks]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

One of the reasons I went with an EV for my next vehicle was to use it as a backup power source for your house during a power outage.

I’m glad your Lightning served you well.

 

[Ekiehn]

We have 2 homes in Florida affected by Hurricane Milton. Both lost power. One had power restored 2 days ago and the other is still without power.

We evacuated our primary house which is 20 miles south of Tampa to our cabin which is 125 miles inland. The eye of the storm passed right over our main house just south of Tampa. While we stayed in the cabin which only had tropical force winds. The Lightning powered the cabin connected to the generator inlet I had installed several months prior, so we had essential circuits with power. What a blessing that was. One of our cabin neighbors has a whole house generator and let us charge the Lightning to top it off.

On the way back home all gas stations didn’t have power but FPL set up a mobile charge station and they kindly topped off the Lightning for us.

20 minutes before arriving to our west coast home it had power restored. We charged the Lightning at home to 90%. The few local gas’s stations with gas have lines as long as 1/4 mile.

Having an EV with gas shortages was an unexpected advantage.

Here are some pictures of our pool cage that didn’t survive. Also included a picture of our Lightning getting a charge from the FPL mobile charge unit.

Great story... Love FPL.. How did you find the FOL mobile charge station, did it show up on their app?

 

[The Weatherman]

Good on FOL.

 

[00SVT]

Carrying around 130kWh is indeed extremely useful.

That said, you experienced a lot of luck with the convenient places to recharge. This should not be considered the norm. In a disaster, your ability to recharge is just as vulnerable as your ability to fill up on gas. Everyone needs to keep that in mind.

I don’t really agree. Sure the first few days- just getting to the fuel will be impossible. Flooding and down trees/lines make travel impossible.

Gas stations need power and fuel to be of service. If you live in NJ, we also need a person to be at the station since we can’t legally pump our own gas. Though on occasion, we do if the need arises.

Additionally the energy we use can’t be taken home to use so less hoarding. On top of that, the digital nature of the transactions greatly discourages price gouging.

The ability for an ev to idle indefinitely and the superior, low-consumption during low speed driving makes an ev a no brainer. Factor into that right now Tesla superchargers can’t be used by every brand .

Ultimately gas stations accept every customer and takes more resources and a supply chain to operate while ev stations are more selective. Evs don’t close for the night, don’t require fuel to be brought in by a vehicle subject to same transportation gridlock due to impassable streets.

 

[johnnyonetime]

We live in Deltona located in Volusia County FL. Just had our power restored after 78 hours. Our ‘22 Lariat ER allowed us to run essential items with a few cords. Also powered the travel trailer this morning to charge its battery.
Started 5am Thursday morning at 100%, now at 57% with a few short trips in between to the grocery store and hauling storm debris up the road.
Love this truck!

 

[CD4TNF]

Great story... Love FPL.. How did you find the FOL mobile charge station, did it show up on their app?

Florida 511 had an announcement on their 511 website. One of the filters was "Other" and had pins of the chargers. See this post.




OP glad you're safe and the Lightning did such a good job. There is a lot of value in hearing EVs had a much better experience in the emergency. The fact power came back on and you could charge while ICE were in long lines. Thank you for sharing your experience. I was curious about the mobile chargers situation.

 

[Scott Libre]

We live in Deltona located in Volusia County FL. Just had our power restored after 78 hours. Our ‘22 Lariat ER allowed us to run essential items with a few cords. Also powered the travel trailer this morning to charge its battery.
Started 5am Thursday morning at 100%, now at 57% with a few short trips in between to the grocery store and hauling storm debris up the road.
Love this truck!

We also live in West Volusia. Our whole home generator saved the day for our 3 day power outage. We have a 23 Lariat SR and it easily pulled our dump trailer loaded with a very heavy tree trunk and branches to our local transfer station. Estimated range dropped to about 115 mile while towing, stated at 95%.

The pulling power felt as good as my now traded-in F250...that averaged 11.5 MPG.

 

[chl]

Thanks for the stories about your experiences.

My daughter had to evacuate Pinellas County (mandatory for her mobile home) in an ICE vehicle for Milton, she said the lines at gas stations were long and then they ran out of regular gasoline, so she had to pump high-test - she got $0.85 of high-test then the pump ran dry at one station.

It took her over 22 hours to get out of Florida to a friend's house in S.C. with spotty gasoline availability and heavy traffic most of the way out of Fl.

Yesterday, gas-buddy said about 1/3 of gas stations in Fl were still without gasoline for her trip back. Power has been restored though.

Based on that, and the experience of the posters with EVs, she surely would have done better in an EV with the evacuation and return trips, before the power went out and now that it has been restored in Fl.

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