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.

 

[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.

 

[Runaway Tractor]

Gas stations need power

So does an EV charger...

The only reason OP has continuously available power was his neighbor's gas generator recharging his truck, and the FPL mobile unit to recharge his truck. The truck was extremely useful. Like I said, carrying around 130kWh is awesome for having a lot of power readily available. But in wide scale regional disaster, the ability to recharge will be just as difficult as the ability to find gasoline. The gas stations and EV chargers require the same electricity and the same road.

 

[potato]

Bottom line, EVs are more versatile than ICE, not less. You can come up with disaster scenarios where gas might be better, but I believe on average, being able to charge from gas generator or grid/off grid power is an advantage.

 

[Mach Turtle]

There's one more factor favoring EVs in disasters: It's possible to generate your own electricity with solar panels (slowly, in most cases, but at least it's possible). Most of us can't pump and refine our own gasoline, except for a few of our friends in Texas perhaps...

Of course, that assumes that our panels haven't been blown to the next county by another f@#$ing hurricane.

 

[00SVT]

So does an EV charger...

The only reason OP has continuously available power was his neighbor's gas generator recharging his truck, and the FPL mobile unit to recharge his truck. The truck was extremely useful. Like I said, carrying around 130kWh is awesome for having a lot of power readily available. But in wide scale regional disaster, the ability to recharge will be just as difficult as the ability to find gasoline. The gas stations and EV chargers require the same electricity and the same road.

Yeah, simply not true. They do not require the same road.

The reason Florida has so many gas stations with power but no fuel is because Fl is one of a very states that gets in fuel deliveries exclusively from specific ports. Here is an excerpt:


How long will it take to refuel?
Most of Orlando's gas supply is delivered through the port of Tampa, where there are 10 operating terminals. Major oil companies' gas is then shipped to Orlando through a pipeline. The port is still working to restore power to the terminals so that they can receive supplies, Lipow explained.
"You need to get workers, terminal operators and truck drivers back, and the Coast Guard needs to inspect the channel for debris, and replace any navigational buoys. All that stuff is happening as we speak," he said. In his estimation, gas deliveries by tankers won't happen until Sunday at the earliest.
Ports that serve the rest of Florida are open, he noted.

So EV stations aren’t waiting on terminals to be opened or inspected. You can read the full article below. One of the Florida mayors explained what was happening and what was next. It seems they are pretty familiar with process by now.

Thousands of Florida gas stations are out of fuel. Here's how long it could take to resupply. CBSNews

Last thing is don’t be ‘That Guy’

My post says “gas stations need power and fuel to be of service”. Don’t selectively edit my quote to further your agenda. At least be civil enough to concede that EV stations don’t need fuel.

 

[Runaway Tractor]

Yeah, simply not true. They do not require the same road.

OMG you cannot be this oblivious to the functioning of the world around you. In order to charge your EV or put fuel in the tank of an ICE vehicle, you need electricity at the station, and you need a passable road to get from your home to that station. With either of those factors compromised, you and your ICE neighbor are equally as screwed once the gas tank is empty or the battery is depleted.

Just in case it wasn't obvious the first time I mentioned it: the only reason the OP could continue to use his EV to power the cabin was because of his neighbor's generator recharging the truck. This worked out fabulous for him. It is good to know and be friends with your neighbors in an emergency. It's actually the long term plan at my own place, recharging using the big generator at my neighbor's farm (plus my own LPG portable generator and 200gal of LPG I had before the lightning). I have that plan, because I am not delusional. In a widespread regional power failure, the nearby charging stations will be just as dead as the nearby gas stations.

Bottom line regardless of how some people want to spin this. Plan ahead when there isn't an emergency. Figure out how much power you will likely have and how long it will last. Then keep thinking ahead to what you will do when you available power starts getting low. Simply assuming you'll be able to charge at a nearby station is a foolish assumption.

Sponsored