JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There's much uncertainty over the path Hurricane Dorian will take as it inches closer to Florida, but many people aren't taking chances and are heeding the warnings of officials to evacuate to a shelter.
Doors to some shelters, including ones in Duval County, had already opened on Monday, giving people plenty of time to evacuate. Caroline Layson is playing it safe, staying in a shelter as Dorian moves closer to Jacksonville.
Layson, who lives in Atlantic Beach, has evacuated her home five different times.
"You can't replace a life," Layson said. "You can't hold a house up if it goes and you can't stop the floodwaters. What are you staying for?"
It is Shawn Lestor's first time evacuating during a storm. He said he too was not taking any chances, and he brought many of the comforts of home along with him.
"Pillows, my headphones, some clothes, some sleeping meds to go to sleep at night," Lestor said.
News4Jax has compiled a county-by-county list of shelters opening ahead of the storm in Northeast Florida.
RELATED: County-by-county list of shelters open as Floridians flee Hurricane Dorian
Christian Smith with the American Red Cross says there are about 257 people in various Red Cross shelters in Jacksonville.
Shelters across the state
As of Monday night, 122 shelters were open across the state of Florida. 27 of those shelters were for people with special needs.
At Edgewater High School in Orlando, roughly two dozen of the city's most vulnerable had already sought refuge in the school's gymnasium. Among them were the homeless or those with no way of getting out of harm's way.
The shelter's manager, Vic Parker, says there's no way of knowing how many people will show up in the next day or two as Dorian gets closer, but there is room for 450 people.
"We do have an emergency evacuation plan. And also, if we have a tornado, we do have a tornado-safe place here at the high school to push the clients into a tornado-safe place," Parker said.
Bill Van Dyke, a visually-impaired volunteer from Knoxville, Tennessee, brought his guide dog to not only help him get around but also offer comfort and stress relief to residents and others seeking refuge at the shelter.
"You can't imagine how, you know, stressful it is for the people who are coming into our shelter," Van Dyke said. "Some of them have, you know, all sorts of different disabilities, and they need the support to relieve their stress with."
Richard McAdoo was among those planning to ride out Dorian at the shelter.
McAdoo says he's homeless and is grateful to be at a shelter that offers mental health services to deal with stress.
"The fear of being homeless after the hurricane is – the resources that we have normally aren't going to be available, because they're going to be home with their family or our meeting spots are going to be under some kind of damage," McAdoo said.
McAdoo says he's not only worried about riding out Dorian safely, but also where he will land after the storm.