NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Some Tennesseans stuck in the mix of Hurricane Milton evacuations break down what they have been experiencing as the storm approaches.

Some Floridians recently moved from Tennessee to areas directly in the path of Hurricane Milton and said they’re either hunkering down and staying in Florida or hitting the road and heading back to Tennessee.

Rain falling in Florida on Monday afternoon was the start of what former Tennessee resident Erich Gentry said could be his worst nightmare come to life.

“It has ramped up so fast,” Gentry said. “I knew I needed to keep an eye on it after last week’s storm. We’re just so over-saturated and trees are already trying to work themselves down.”

Gentry moved from Nashville to St. Augustine two years ago and said watching Hurricane Milton intensify was unlike anything he’d ever heard or seen before.

When asked about his evacuation plan, Gentry said, “I kind of drug my feet just a little bit, and within a matter of hours it strengthened to a category 5, even the gas station that’s just up the street from me is already out of fuel and people are going crazy.”

But crowds at gas pumps weren’t unique to St. Augustine, Jessica Beard who moved from Columbia, Tennessee to Fort Myers, Florida said she also saw busy gas stations when she and her family were headed north Monday morning.

Beard said they loaded up their car and started driving to Columbia, Tennessee at 7 a.m.

“We hit traffic coming out of Fort Myers around Sarasota,” Beard said. “It was stop and go all the way through Ocala.”

Beard said she and her family were following the progression of the storm for days. As soon as the meteorologist announced that Hurricane Milton upgraded from a category 3 storm to a category 4 and then a category 5 storm by Monday morning, Beard and her family started to panic. Beard said people started posting reports online of store shelves emptying and generators selling out.

“We’re not in the mandatory evacuation zone but, it’s just a few streets over that are, so we left, better safe than sorry,” Beard said.

Gentry said when he decided to leave, traffic was just too bad. He was worried he’d possibly run out of gas and not be able to find a station that wasn’t also out of gas.

“Unfortunately, anything heading north is pretty much already backed up,” Gentry said. “People are evacuating with their cars and things, so it seems like I may have missed the boat unfortunately.”

To prepare for the storm, Gentry said he was loading up his home with sandbags, food, and water.

“At this point, I think it’s just time to batten down the hatches and try to pray and hope for the best for myself and everyone around us,” Gentry said.

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Tennessee has done an excellent job recruiting quarterbacks since Josh Heupel made it to campus. Heupel has landed four quarterbacks including Nico Iamaleava, Jake Merklinger, George MacIntyre, and Faizon Brandon. It’s safe to say they locate their targets early on and have done just that in the 2027 class.

Trae Taylor is a Lake In The Hills, Illinois prospect who attends Carmel Catholic High School. Taylor is a four-star target who recently received his Tennessee offer and offers from 20+ schools as a current sophomore in high school. Many anticipate him to be a five-star.

He caught up with Tennessee on SI following his offer.

“It is a special offer to me. Tennessee was one of the first schools my dad took me to when I was younger. This helped me to dream about playing in front of over 100k fans one day,” the 2027 QB states. “It was Coach Halzle and Coach Militello who offered me. They just said they watched my film and loved it. They think I’d be a great fit for them with the things I do. (Which I do agree with). Tennessee, once they started recruiting me has been very consistent,” Taylor stated.

He will visit Rocky Top sooner than later and is working on finding a date soon. “I’m most definitely going to visit.  We are trying to figure out a good date to make this happen. But I’m definitely getting down there this season.” Tennessee is already making noise being listed in Taylor’s early edition of a top 10 that has not been finalized. “Tennessee right now is in my top 10.  As a QB who wouldn’t want to play in an offense where you know they throw it around?  Play in an amazing stadium, and home of Peyton Manning. The fan base has already shown a ton of love on social media. I have already seen the facilities multiple times so I know what that is.”

Moving forward the prospect hopes to connect well with this staff. “I want to see if we connect and if they can develop me to be a 1st round draft pick. Now that I have the offer I’ll make sure to reach out to Joe Milton and get his feedback on things.”

“My biggest message is if this is the school I pick, just know I give my all to be great. That will not change at Tennessee. So keep showing that Tennessee love and I’ll see you soon.”

He also had a story to share about Coach Joey Halzle.

“Just know the first time Coach Halzle saw me throw I was in 6th or 7th grade and I had a great conversation with him and the rest of the staff.  Been a long time coming.  Coach still has not followed me on Twitter like he said years ago,” Taylor said jokingly…”But this offer makes up for that.”

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What head coach Josh Heupel said during his weekly press conference on Monday, looking back at the 19-14 loss at Arkansas and previewing No. 8 Tennessee’s game against Florida on Saturday night (7 Eastern Time, ESPN) at Neyland Stadium:

Opening Statement

“Hope everybody’s doing great. The morning got a good start with the guys. Obviously it’s an opportunity and time of the week where you look back at the football game and how we get better. Whether you win or lose, it’s important by the time you go out on the field with the guys that you flush it, you move on. And as competitors you’re only as good as your next one. Everybody in the building disappointed with the outcome on Saturday night.  You can’t do anything about that at this point other than take the lessons and push forward and continue to, to grow as a football team. And you know, so in that way, no matter what happened the previous week, you got to move on. Guys we’re good. Took the information and had a good demeanor out on the practice field. So it’s important for us that we get off to a good start and prepare the right way, just like it is every single week for us. 

“This week, coming back home. Excited to be back in Neyland Stadium and it’s been been a month since we got a chance to be in there, play in there and see our fans. So looking forward to seeing them. We need to  create a great environment. I know we will, like always. We need to have the Neyland effect in effect on Saturday night. And it’s our responsibility as football team to prepare and practice the right way to go play. But our fans can be a huge part of the environment and the football game as well. 

“So looking forward to it. Florida is playing its best ball right now. They continue to get better throughout the course of the season. That’s really in all three phases. Defensively, long, athletic, have speed Offensively, both the quarterbacks are playing really good football right now. And the offensive line is really solid.”

Tennessee’s offense not establishing tempo the last two games 

“This past week, offensively, you look at the football game, so many self-inflicted wounds. Pre-snap penalties, playing penalties, miscommunication. So at times you’re not playing on tempo. In the course of drives when we’ve wanted to play with tempo, we’ve been able to do it and play it efficiently. D-Samp’s big run, there’s multiple instances of it. At the end of the day you got to play smart, effective football. The prior week (at Oklahoma) I certainly slowed things down in the second half and played a different style just because of the flow of the football game. And I tried to play all three phases together. For us, we got to do the ordinary things at a really high level. Last week we didn’t do that very well. The week before that we did a lot of things really well.” 

Pass protection issues, if they were pre or post snap and Arkansas’ odd front

“Structurally, that is what the last couple opponents have decided to play against us. Certainly capable last week of attacking and performing better than we did in the run game and in the pass game. Again, some of the things that we control, not taking anything away from Arkansas, but some of the things that we control, we did not handle very well. You heard me say it already, but communication was a big part of it and then the penalties just changes the way the game is played. Too many third-and-longs so you got to be ready to go attack what we see on game day.”

If defenses are disguising things to make it harder on Nico Iamaleava

“Nico played really well a week ago (Oklahoma). Clean in his decision making, decisive, accurate with the football. This past week, first play of the ball game, rips a nice ball. Sum of all parts. As the game went on, we didn’t play as clean. Some of that’s Nico. Some of that’s the guys around him. At the quarterback position, takes 10 guys around you playing at a high level too. So sum of all parts, all 11 operating, doing— I’m going to say ordinary things that are really high level, consistently is the difference in the ball game.”

If he thinks teams will continue to do that

“Yeah. The last couple of years we’ve seen four down (fronts), five down, three down, seeing those structures. We got to go attack it and play well.:

The play of Lance Heard and John Campbell, where they need to be better

“We love those guys, believe in those guys. Those two, like pretty much everybody offensively, can perform at a higher level as we go. And have performed at a higher level than they did the other night and some of that’s just ordinary things— fundamentals, technique, alignment, assignment and technique.”

If offensive line issues were communication or losing one-on-one

“Some of it’s just one-on-one battles.”

If he should have taken a timeout after the deep pass to Dont’e Thornton on two-minute drive

“In hindsight, yep, for sure. As I recognized that we weren’t immediately ready thought about going to timeout then I thought we were ready to get the ball off in the next couple seconds and every time out at the end of the game creates a different scenario where you’re not pushing the ball into the end zone, forced to push the ball into the end zone. So yeah, absolutely.”

The challenges of preparing for two Florida quarterbacks in Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway

“Yeah, I think both of ’em have played smart football, they’ve been accurate with the football in particular the last couple of weeks. They both operate within the system extremely well. Both have the ability to run the football and move and extend and make plays. You know, young kid (Lagway) is dynamic with the ball in his hands.

Florida’s defensive front

“Yeah, they’re multiple in what they do. That’s their front. Suits their coverages on the back end. It’s the pressures that they apply and they can get to the quarterback with just a four-down front, too. So, you know, for us, communication, understanding where we’re working to, recognizing the pressure. That can be the front five guys, it’s your back, it’s your tight end at times as well. All gotta be in sync and then you gotta play good football. You gotta play the fundamentals and in technique and win your one on one. But another part of that is going and winning on the outside. Doing it quickly and quarterback being decisive. All 11 guys gotta play together.”

How he thought the team’s preparation was going into the Arkansas game

“I thought Tuesday’s practice during the bye week was really good. Wednesday’s was a different type of practice. I thought our preparation was solid last week. End of the day we didn’t go perform the way we needed to and so that’s personal accountability and team accountability.” 

If there’s an update on Squirrel White, Bru McCoy or Bryson Eason

“None of the injuries are long-term, season-ending injuries. As we go through the week, we’ll find out exactly where everybody’s at. You guys can look forward to the injury report on Wednesday.”