"The only people on this block who have left have the money to do it"

WILBUR-BY-THE-SEA, FL – In general, on Labor Day, Sherry Estrada and her family will go boating, or relax with a drink on the beach, a quarter mile from their home. home. But this year, they huddled around the television to wait for the latest updates on Hurricane Dorian and what route he could take.

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office also provided an update to Estrada, passing in front of his home and announcing by loudspeaker that this Florida barrier island was considered a mandatory evacuation zone. But with the hurricane just one day, about a dozen people in this very united neighborhood stayed Monday and planned to weather the storm together and coordinate around walkie talkies.

Evacuate is easier said than done, Estrada said. The unclear trajectory of the storm has shut down businesses and cost the population nearly a week's salary. The evacuation expenses and the missed revenues made it almost impossible for many people to leave, including Estrada.

"The only people on this block who have left have the money to do it – a dentist, a pilot, an anesthesiologist," said Estrada, while his little girl was pulling his arm. "I'm a hairdresser and I will not be able to work this week. My son-in-law owns his own business. My daughter is a nurse, so she is on call. I have another son who is an electrician and he does not work this week. My other girl is a waitress, so it was supposed to be a big weekend of shebang for them – they lose that money. My husband is a machinist and his job will probably not be open. "

She said that she had started to prepare for the storm about a week ago, but that one day before the slow arrival of Dorian, her family had eaten with the food that they had bought for the storm. And although she did not go into detail, she added that they had also spent quite a bit of money preparing for the storm.

The cost of evacuation keeps many people like Estrada at home, even if this house is in the danger zone. Beyond traveling expenses and missed wages, every day they are not home means they pay for food and shelter elsewhere.

More than one million people across the Southeast are doing the same calculations to leave the city. The unclear trajectory of Hurricane Dorian and the exasperating slowness complicated their decisions.

The storm was expected to hit the Florida coast earlier this week, but forecasts began to change over the weekend.

Dorian then stalled Sunday and Monday on the Bahamas as a category 5 hurricane, not exceeding 1 km / h. At least five people died in what Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis called a "historic tragedy" and left many people on the islands.

In Florida, not far from Port Orange Beach, Bob and Linda Younkins said that they thought they had escaped the decision to make an evacuation decision when they settled in Panama City after Hurricane Michael – a Category 5 storm that killed dozens of people when she landed. on the Florida Panhandle almost a year ago.

Linda Younkins, 55, said she left her job at a TJ Maxx store in Panama City, permanently closed at a store near Port Orange. When Hurricane Dorian appeared imminent last week, the store closed. Since then, she calls every day in the hope of being able to return to work.

The loss of this salary is one of the reasons the couple had already told their friends and family that they did not want to evacuate their home on the barrier island. The other problem? They did not know where to go even if they wanted to leave.

"We could drive north or Tampa, I guess, but we have nowhere to go," said Younkins, noting that the closet family was in Pittsburgh. "We could sleep in our car if I had to, but I'd rather be here at home."

And while some, like Younkins, weighed the cost of the evacuation, others were trying to take advantage of the storm.

Clay Baldwin, 28, drove a rental truck full of electric generators from his home in South Carolina to a roadside location in Allandale, Florida. Baldwin said that he was working for Elite Power, a company that builds generators. On Monday, he sold the gasoline gear to the worried Floridians for $ 650 to $ 750, which was little more than they would be if they were still available in the stores, but he said he was planning to leave Dorian the next day.

"This storm is only 1 mph currently, so we check for updates whenever we can – update, update, update," he said, sitting on a cooler at the same time. The back of the truck.

Many stores between Port Orange and Palm Bay, Florida, have either been closed or exhausted, as well as other hurricane preparation items. The 90-mile zone was under the alert of a National Hurricane Center hurricane Monday.

People in this group shared their frustrations and anxieties on Monday while searching for last minute items at open service stations.

Irving Surdam, a 55-year-old construction worker, filled cans of gasoline of different sizes in Melbourne Beach, Florida, as a band of heavy rain and wind hit his white van.

"If I think it's going to hit, I'll get out of here," he said, pointing out that he was worried about the storm surge hitting his home on the beach. "I just want to know what's happening at home, but it's so slow. It's been almost a week already. This thing has its own mind, and no one really seems to know what's going on. "

But not everyone seemed to be in conflict.

On the nearby beach, crowds of people have braved the wind and rain to watch the surf of the Atlantic Ocean evoke the strength of Hurricane Dorian, located less than 100 miles from the coast of Florida.

Bradley Eris, 23, a roofer who lives nearby, eyes wide when he saw a group of teenagers rushing into the hectic surf.

"When there is such a storm, the slopes are pretty bad," he said, as the tropical rain turned his hair into a wet mop. "People have to be careful. They can get sucked there if they are not strong enough to swim. Some of the best surfers I know would not go out there. "