Fliers land in MN after escaping hurricane in Florida

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Those who took the last flights out of Florida before Hurricane Milton hit landed at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Wednesday night.

Some cut short plans and returned days earlier than scheduled while others had already planned to return home but struggled to get to the airport.

"I was panicking, like what am I going to do if I don’t get out of Miami?" said Elizabeth Hvidsten, of Shakopee. "Are we going to be stuck in traffic? Is there going to be gas? Because we are not from there. We have never evacuated. I know what to do in a snowstorm. I don’t know what to do in a hurricane."

Hvidsten owns a company that takes adults with disabilities on vacation. They spent a day at Disney World on Monday before the forecast prompted them to drive to Miami and find an earlier flight home. 

"Until I was on that flight, I was nervous, and then I had a sense of relief," she said. 

Others didn’t have to change their plans but encountered challenges making it to the airport in Florida.

"My rental had to stop at 10 different gas stations in order to fill up the tank in the vehicle, so it just kind of goes to show how many people were starting to scatter and travel kind of all at one time," said Scott Sowers, of Duluth.

Sowers traveled from West Palm Beach to Ft. Lauderdale with his wife and infant daughter, where they flew back to the Twin Cities.

"We stuck with our original flights, and I got to imagine we were one of the last ones to make it," he said.

Many Florida airports shut down by Wednesday afternoon, hours before the hurricane made landfall. It’s unclear when they’ll reopen.