'I drove a 54-hour roundtrip to rescue my grandma from Hurricane Milton'

A woman drove more than 54 hours on a round trip to save her 93-year-old grandmother from Hurricane Milton before it battered Florida on Wednesday night.

Jennifer Seaman, 40, and her mother, Sue Schaffnit, 66, were becoming increasingly worried about the impact of the storm, so they decided to pack their things and drive from Peoria, Illinois, to Venice, Florida, to save Jennifer's grandmother, who hasn't been named.

Peoria is a small city near the middle-north of the state, located about 166 miles southwest of Chicago. Venice is a city on Florida's western coast about halfway between St. Petersburg and Tampa to the north and Fort Myers to the south. The two cities themselves are over 1,200 miles from each other.

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But the journey was a necessary one for Seaman and Schaffnit, who set off at 10 p.m. CDT on Oct. 6. Overnight, they passed through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, then traveled all the way down Florida's west coast to Venice, arriving at 7 p.m. EDT the following day. That made their journey approximately 20 hours.

Upon arrival, the mother-daughter duo secured the 93-year-old grandmother's bags and set off with her about 30 minutes later. The drive back to Illinois reportedly took 34 hours, with the trio arriving at approximately 5 a.m. CDT on Oct. 9.

The grandmother is now set to stay with Seaman and Schaffnit indefinitely after her care home lost power and the Venice area flooded from the intense rains and storm surge brought by the storm.

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Seaman is reportedly a stay-at-home mom. She said she realized how bad things were getting down in Florida at around 9 p.m. CDT Sunday night and said she started talking to her mother on the phone. They were going back and forth, checking flights, but everything was booked.

As it neared 10 p.m., the pair decided definitively to make the drive to Florida. They grabbed what little they could with such little notice and headed to the car. "We didn't pack bags or have a change of clothes," Seaman told the South West News Service.

Seaman added that the staff at the care facility had a plan to shelter in place to weather the storm and had encouraged residents to stay. But Seaman said that wasn't an option.

"I think for my mom and I, if something bad was to happen or if the storm was to take a massive turn and wipe people out, the last thing we wanted was for my grandma to have died without family with her," she told SWNS.

The reason it took so long to leave Venice was because of a gridlock of traffic that lasted for around six hours, during which time they only moved about 100 miles. They planned to drive as far as possible and then stay in a hotel, but they found that most were fully booked.

"We were still calling hotels at 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning trying to find somewhere to rest for a couple of hours," Seaman said. "We finally found a hotel just outside Atlanta, where we checked in around 11 a.m., and headed out at 2 p.m."

Seaman said she's glad they went to pick up her grandmother and said the 93-year-old is "relieved" to be with her daughter and granddaughter. Seaman said she was "very strong throughout the journey," noting that it was "a long way to travel at her age."

Nevertheless, the woman is reportedly anxious to see how everyone else at the home is and is excited to get back — but for now, she's content spending time with her family and waiting until the power comes back on at the facility.