HAMPTON, Ga. — Some of the Southerners escaping Hurricane Florence have found refuge in makeshift shelters, including campgrounds at three of the nation’s largest motor speedways.
But gas shortages and jammed freeways loomed for evacuees seeking safety from the storm.
In North Carolina, 1 in 10 gas stations in Wilmington and Raleigh-Durham had no gas by midday Wednesday.
In the wake of Florence
- Flooding in Florence's final stand not as bad as feared
- Florence's slow-motion havoc leaves thousands of evacuees in limbo
- House approves $1.7 billion in disaster aid for Carolinas
- Florence is nation's second-wettest storm, behind Harvey
- Carolinas begin reckoning with loss of homes, livelihoods
- Damage to crops, farms could be in the billions
- Downgrade? Hurricane rating system fails to account for deadly rain
At Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, personal belongings were spread across an open field where the first few evacuees arrived Wednesday.
Melody Rawson left her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, arriving at the Georgia speedway with two dogs and a cockatoo, and a couple of coolers holding some sandwich meat.
Bristol Motor Speedway, near the Tennessee-Virginia line, and Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina also opened their campgrounds to evacuees.