<\/p>\n
Traffic is seen heading North along the Florida Turnpike near Homestead, Fla., as tourists in the Florida Keys leave town on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017 ahead of Hurricane Irma.<\/p>\n
AL DIAZ<\/p>\n
adiaz@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Florida has a new niche industry to help those who can afford it get out of dodge before a hurricane whirls ashore.<\/p>\n
A newly launched company in Florida proposes a way to avoid getting stuck on the highway or gauged by last-minute commercial or charter flights: you can buy, essentially, an annual hurricane season pass that saves a seat on a private evacuation flight out of Florida.<\/p>\n
PriorityEvac launched this summer, and it\u2019s selling seats on planes that would leave from major Florida airports and take evacuees to Atlanta. For $1,250 a year (per person) it\u2019s good for two separate storms in one season. Pets can come for an additional $125.<\/p>\n
PriorityEvac\u2019s tagline is \u201cEvacuation, elevated\u201d and a section of its website makes a pitch for selling its product to high net worth, or HNW, individuals. The company lists insurance brokers and agents, residential property management, wealth management and private aviation operators as natural fits for their referral service. Florida has seen an influx of high net worth individuals<\/a> in the past few years along with services trying to cater to them<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHNW households ask their broker, advisor, board, or property manager how to evacuate when a storm threatens. The honest answer, until now, has been \u201cwe don\u2019t have a good one,\u201d the site says.<\/a><\/p>\n Founder Jason Murgio said he considers his product as an affordable alternative to private charter planes, which can \u201ceasily run into the low five figures per flight,\u201d for a last-minute self-charter, his site said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis would have probably been much easier to do if we aimed for a smaller service on private planes,\u201d he said. \u201cThe whole point was to have something that is reasonably priced, and something that many people could use versus something that is very finite and has a very high price point.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s gotta be a better way\u2019<\/p>\n The concept came to Murgio after a friend complained about the difficulties and expense of evacuating Florida to New York ahead of a storm. Murgio, a longtime member of the insurance industry, saw a business idea.<\/p>\n \u201cI said to myself, there\u2019s gotta be a better way to do this,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n South Florida is the first spot he\u2019s launched in, but the goal is to take the service to North Florida and beyond, potentially other Gulf states as well.<\/p>\n PriorityEvac\u2019s pitch is that people can pre-book a seat on a plane leaving from six major coastal airports: Miami International, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, President Donald J. Trump International (formerly Palm Beach), Tampa International, Sarasota Bradenton International and Southwest Florida International.<\/p>\n When a specific storm threshold is triggered, usually by a tropical storm warning for the region, the company starts scheduling flights and lets each member know what time theirs leaves. That way, they skip the hassle of trying to rent a car, fight through turnpike traffic or snag one of the few seats on a commercial flight out of town.<\/p>\n If a storm doesn\u2019t happen that season, PriorityEvac keeps the $1,250 fee. It\u2019s like paying an annual insurance premium for a one-way plane ticket off the coast.<\/p>\n Murgio said the annual fee is a bargain compared to some of the costs he\u2019s heard of.<\/p>\n Someone at an industry event told him he paid $1,800 for a car service from Miami to Orlando and then $2,000 in last minute air fare to get his college student daughter home to New York ahead of a hurricane. Another said plane tickets out of Tampa ahead of one of the recent hurricanes were $1,400 to $3,000.<\/p>\n His service assures that paying members have a seat on a large plane reserved solely for PriorityEvac members. It doesn\u2019t come with a flight home, though.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are an evacuation business. We are not a travel coordinator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Nice to have versus need to have<\/p>\n And while Murgio and his team envision a wide audience of clientele, from students studying away from home, elderly people with advanced medical needs or snowbirds looking for a little reassurance in storm season, this style of evacuation is over and above what evacuation experts typically call for.<\/p>\n When officials call for an evacuation ahead of a hurricane, it\u2019s usually limited to specific geographic zones at the most risk of flooding or high winds. Residents do not generally need to flee their county (or state) when a storm is coming. They may only need to head a few miles inland, away from the deadly wind and storm surge.<\/p>\n \u201cIn general, we are not talking about flying to another state; the evacuation itself is mostly by car and to an area that has not been (or will not be) impacted by the hurricane,\u201d said Eren Erman Ozguven, a professor in the department of civil engineering at Florida State University who focuses on evacuation.<\/p>\n Plus, while the opportunity to cross state lines when a storm comes to town might be welcome for plenty of Floridians, it\u2019s financially out of reach for many \u2014 at Murgio\u2019s price or the inflated hotel and airline costs that are common ahead of a hurricane.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a difference between a need-to-have and a nice-to-have, though, and both Murgio and Erman Ozguven agree there are good reasons to evacuate further than just a few miles inland.<\/p>\n For one, many counties in Florida don\u2019t have enough room<\/a> at their general population shelters, considered a last resort for fleeing from a storm. That gap widens when you zoom in on the more unique shelters, like pet-friendly ones or shelters geared toward people with special medical needs.<\/p>\n Even for those with cash to spare, plenty of hotels don\u2019t allow pets or can\u2019t guarantee a generator to keep power running for people who need electricity for their medical devices. Plus, it can take days for power to be fully restored in affected communities, even if all the structures survived.<\/p>\n And then there are hurricanes like 2017\u2019s Irma, which carved a line right up the spine of the state and sent people fleeing from all corners of Florida. Erman Ozguven and other researchers analyzed Florida traffic monitoring data and found that residents fled to Georgia and beyond \u2014 all the way to the Carolinas and Tennessee.<\/p>\n It was the largest evacuation in modern times, \u201ccreating traffic jams along Florida\u2019s evacuation routes that were worse than during any other hurricane in Florida\u2019s history,\u201d their paper found<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took at least one to two days for many south Floridian evacuees to reach I-10. Traffic jams and fuel shortages slowed them down, drivers found insufficient fuel at gas stations along crowded evacuation routes, and gridlock prolonged drive times by hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s not unusual that Floridians with memories of being trapped in a car for 12-plus hours \u2014 and the right amount of disposable income \u2014 might be intrigued by services like PriorityEvac.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to go to Atlanta, there are other options, but this is really for people who want to have a preparation model that accommodates pets, accommodates family members,\u201d Murgio said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery person who gets out is less stress on the system.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 1:31 PM.<\/p>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/priorityevac2.JPG\" "\\"priorityevac2.JPG\\"")
On its site, PriorityEvac lists comparable costs to its $1,250 per-person annual membership. PriorityEvac <\/p>\n A Key West resident carries bedding and supplies into a shelter at Key West High School as residents sought last-hour refuge from approaching Hurricane Irma. CHARLES TRAINOR JR ctrainor@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
![\"PriorityEvac](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/landing.jpg\" "\\"landing.jpg\\"")
PriorityEvac plans to use passenger planes from GlobalX to ferry evacuees out of Florida. PriorityEvac <\/p>\n![\"Evacuee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MIA_20221003AD0799FortMyers.jpeg\" "\\"MIA_20221003AD0799FortMyers\\"")
Evacuee Michael Gowen waits for transportation after being evacuated to San Marco Island from Fort Myers Beach on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, after Hurricane Ian hit the area. Al Diaz adiaz@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sheltermap.JPG\" "\\"sheltermap.JPG\\"")
A 2025 report by the Florida Department of Emergency Management found that many counties in Florida lack adequate space at general population shelters, the \u201clast resort\u201d for hurricane evacuation. Florida Department of Emergency Management <\/p>\n Traffic comes to a halt at the first checkpoint on U.S. 1 as Keys residents try to make their way back on home on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017, after Hurricane Irma. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
![\"Profile](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AlexHarris-Profile.jpg\")