The woman and her mother drove a total of 54 hours to get their family out of the path of Hurricane Milton.
Jennifer Seaman and her mother, Sue Shafnit, began to worry about Shafnit’s mother, who lives in an assisted living facility in Venice, Florida.
Seaman’s 93-year-old grandmother lives just south of Sarasota, Florida, where residents were affected by the Category 3 hurricane.
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Seaman told SWNS that she and her mother wanted to make sure their family was safe during the storm, but all flights leaving the area were full.
Seaman said she wasn’t going to let her grandmother sit through a hurricane. (SWNS)
“I was talking to my mom at around 9pm on October 6th when the situation started to get more serious,” she said, adding, “We were on the phone back and forth checking flights. But everything was booked.”
An hour later, they decided to get in the car and drive from Peoria, Illinois, to Venice to pick up Grandma themselves.
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“I went to my mother’s house, took about five minutes to decide what I was going to do, and left. I didn’t pack anything, I didn’t have a change of clothes,” Seaman said.
The two women drove 20 hours in a car and traveled 1,210 miles to reach Venice.
Seaman and his mother drove from Illinois to Florida to pick up the 93-year-old. It took 54 hours to drive there and back. (SWNS)
Seaman said her grandmother’s home had a shelter-in-place plan and encouraged residents to ride out the storm.
“I think for my mother and I, if something bad were to happen, if the storm took a major turn and people were wiped out, the last thing we wanted was for my grandmother to die without her family.” she said.
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After picking up Grandma, the women got back on the road to leave Florida. We sat in traffic for 6 hours and traveled only 160 miles.
“When we got outside, the storm was getting more intense,” Seaman told SWNS.
Jennifer Seaman, 40, (left) and her grandmother (right) returned to Illinois from Florida just before Hurricane Milton made landfall. (SWNS)
The three found a hotel outside Atlanta, Georgia, where they checked in for a three-hour nap, the paper said.
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They then hit the road and drove the rest of the way back to Illinois.
A woman and her mother drove 54 hours from Florida to pick up their family before Hurricane Milton hit. It was not an easy drive, but everyone made it home safely. (SWNS)
Seaman told SWNS that her grandmother was “very relieved” to be able to leave before the hurricane hit, but she is thinking of returning to Florida.
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“She wants to go back and check on her, but we can’t contact her assisted living home because Venice is flooded and the power is out,” Seaman said.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Seaman for additional comment.
