Israelis in Irma's path share their experiences
Tomer Amar and Eyal Melamed, two Israelis currently living in Florida, share what they've done to prepare for the category 5 hurricane about to hit the US; they report extreme gas and water shortages.
"We've experienced several storms here, and I sincerely hope Irma won't reach the proportions of the Texas hurricane. They say it'll be one of the biggest storms in Florida's history, so we're not taking any chances. We have three kids and we're going to play it safe," Tomer Amar told Ynet.
"We placed shutters (on windows) all around the house, we packed some suitcases and (Wednesday) morning we're leaving for Carolina with some friends," Amar went on to say. "We took everything that was really important to us. We're leaving in a convoy, we decided to make a fun week out of it. We hope to have fun there and to come back to (find) the house still where we left it."
Does that mean you might come back and not find the house where you left it?
"We hope for the best and pray that won't happen. We've done everything we could."
Water and gas have become hard to come by in Florida, Amar said. "This afternoon, gas was impossible to find, all the stations were empty. Water wasn't available anywhere either. It's like supermarkets were overrun by people and now all the water's gone. The Key West area is being evacuated, all 160,000 people. It's a few hours south of us, the southernmost tip of Florida, so there's going to be traffic too on top of everything else," he bemoaned.
A hurricane hit Florida last year as well, but it wasn't as destructive as Irma is projected to be.
"We stayed through last year's storm," Amar recounted, "and it wasn't so bad. That was a category 2, maybe 3, storm, though. This is a category 5 one with winds of more than 220 kph. We're not going to stick around for it."
Eyal Melamed, another Israeli residing in Florida, went to a supermarket Tuesday morning and couldn't find water. "I'm in a Wal-Mart in Hallandale, Florida. There's no more water, the shelves are all empty so people are buying bottles," Melamed reported from the field.
Melamed then recounted his travails at a North Miami Beach gas station. "It's a mess," he said, "there's an insane line of cars waiting to fill up. The pump can't handle the strain so you have to wait until it comes back to life. Gas prices went up, they're now $2.69 a gallon. We're waiting it out for now, my wife is stressed but I'm okay. There's a problem with the gas, but we'll get by. Worst comes to worst, we'll walk."
