Within two weeks, Florida was struck by two major hurricanes. Helene made landfall on the eastern Florida Panhandle on September 26 as a Category 4 storm and caused major power outages and infrastructure damage along a path from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains. Milton came ashore on the west coast on October 9 as a Category 3. Three other named storms, Beryl, Debby and Francine, had already made landfall in the United States during the season as Category 1 or 2 hurricanes.
The electricity damage from Helene, especially in western North Carolina, has dominated coverage. The fuel story is quieter but in some ways more revealing. After Milton, hundreds of Florida gas stations ran out of fuel. Yet the statewide average gasoline price was unchanged in the week after landfall. That combination says a great deal about where Florida's fuel vulnerability actually lies.
A state with no refineries and one key port
Florida has no oil refineries and no major product pipelines from the Gulf Coast refining centers. Almost all of its gasoline, diesel and jet fuel arrives by tanker and barge, then moves by truck from coastal terminals to stations and airports. The Energy Information Administration notes that more than 43% of Florida's petroleum products, including jet fuel for the state's major airports, move through Port Tampa Bay, where more than 17 million tons of petroleum and gas products pass in a typical year.
Both hurricanes closed that port. Before Helene, the Coast Guard closed several Gulf Coast ports and halted traffic into Tampa Bay. Before Milton, it did so again. Each closure stopped the flow of fuel into the most important supply point for the state's west coast and interior.
Why prices stayed flat
The EIA's account of the post-Milton market is precise. The average retail price of regular gasoline in Florida was unchanged on October 14 compared with October 7. The national average was $3.17 a gallon, up 1% on the week.
That stability had several causes. Wholesale markets were well supplied, so the storms did not create a regional shortage of product in the Gulf Coast refining system that serves Florida. Terminals elsewhere in the state, on the Atlantic coast, kept operating. And the price of gasoline at a station that has fuel is set by wholesale costs plus margin. When a station has no fuel, it does not post a price, and its absence does not raise the average.
The EIA notes that price spikes at individual stations do occur, and they feed into statewide averages, but in this case they were not enough to move the state figure. The emergency response helped: on October 15, the governor's office reported that the Florida Division of Emergency Management had deployed 508,600 gallons of diesel and 686,200 gallons of gasoline to address shortages.
Shortage without scarcity
What Florida experienced after Milton was a distribution shortage, not a supply shortage. There was gasoline in the system, at terminals and in tankers waiting offshore. What was missing for several days was the ability to move it: port access, terminal power, trucks and drivers able to reach stations, and stations with electricity to run their pumps.
That distinction matters for policy. A supply shortage calls for releasing reserves, waiving fuel specifications or importing more product. A distribution shortage calls for things that are less visible: backup power at terminals and stations, pre-positioned trucks and fuel, fast port reopening after storms, and coordination between state emergency managers and fuel distributors.
Florida has invested in some of these. Many stations near interstates and evacuation routes are required to be wired so that a portable generator can be connected quickly, which helps only if generators and fuel to run them reach the station. But the post-Milton outages show the limits, particularly when a second storm arrives before the system has fully recovered from the first.
The offshore production dimension
The hurricanes also touched upstream supply. Before Helene, companies including bp, Chevron, Equinor and Shell evacuated staff and paused some Gulf of Mexico production. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement data compiled by the EIA showed 29% of Gulf oil production, about 511,000 barrels a day, and 17% of gas production shut in at the peak. Before Milton, Chevron closed its Blind Faith platform, with 65,000 barrels a day of capacity, about 160 miles southeast of New Orleans.
These shut-ins were short and had little effect on national prices. That is now the typical pattern. The Gulf of Mexico production system is resilient to most storms, and shut-ins usually reverse within days. The more lasting damage in recent hurricanes has been to onshore infrastructure: refineries, terminals, power lines and ports.
The power-fuel link
Helene's electricity damage, especially in the southern Appalachians, illustrates the other side of the problem. Gas stations, fuel terminals and pipelines need electricity to operate. When the grid fails over a wide area, fuel distribution fails with it, even where fuel is physically available. In turn, utility repair crews need fuel to restore the grid.
That mutual dependence is the core resilience issue. It argues for treating fuel terminals and key stations as critical loads in utility restoration plans, and for ensuring that backup power at those sites is maintained and tested before hurricane season.
Lessons for a busier storm era
The 2024 season will be counted as an expensive one, with five landfalling hurricanes and two major storms hitting Florida in quick succession. For the fuel system, the main lessons are clear. Florida's exposure is concentrated in a small number of ports, above all Tampa Bay. Prices are a poor indicator of distress, because stations without fuel drop out of the average. And recovery depends as much on electricity and logistics as on the supply of fuel itself.
A state that imports all of its fuel by sea will always be vulnerable to storms that close its ports. The goal is not to remove that vulnerability, which is impossible, but to shorten the time between landfall and full distribution. That means investment in the unglamorous parts of the system: generators, trucks, terminal hardening and faster port inspections.