Students forced to relocate as Jennings Middle gymnasium deemed ‘unsafe for hurricane conditions’

Photo courtesy of anonymous USF St. Petersburg evacuee

By Mahika Kukday

Students sheltered at the Jennings Middle School gymnasium were forced to relocate to a classroom building (building three) at 6:38 p.m. today, Oct. 9, after the gymnasium was deemed “unsafe for hurricane conditions” by Hillsborough County officials.

USF St. Petersburg and USF Sarasota students were in building three since they arrived at the shelter yesterday morning, while the gymnasium housed a mix of USF Tampa and University of Tampa students who had to move their belongings just hours before Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall near Sarasota tonight.

Ten students were assigned per classroom.

“It was a very hectic move, it felt like something out of Survivor when we had to group into tens,” Cameron Doom, a political science senior at USF Tampa, told The Crow’s Nest’s News Editor, Riley Benson. “Groups were screaming to fill up so we could get out there before the storm intensified.”

According to Duy Do, a senior graphic design major at USF St. Petersburg who has also been at Jennings Middle since Tuesday morning, building three will be under lockdown starting 7 p.m. today. Students do not know when the lockdown will end.

Now relocated to classroom buildings, students are setting up their sleeping arrangements on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
*Photo courtesy of anonymous USF Tampa evacu*ee

Since yesterday, additional sleeping cots have been provided. Doom said there are now a total of 20 cots, 10 for staff and 10 for students, and that the students could enter a raffle to get the extra cots.

At the time of publication, students are receiving three hot meals a day, along with snack bags.