CAPE CORAL, Fla — On Friday, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) said a stop-use order was issued for the Premium tank for the 7-Eleven in Cape Coral at, 12 NE Pine Island Road.
The stop-use order unfortunately happened after drivers like Travis Wooten filled up their tanks.
“I recognized it almost right away as soon as I started it up, she coughed back a little bit,” said Wooten.
After Hurricane Debby, The FDACS said of the nearly 2,500 facilities in impacted areas that were inspected by department staff, 105 facilities were found to have water-contaminated fuel.
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They said inspectors were working with these facilities to ensure any issues were corrected before they reopened to the public.
Wooten tells me he was lucky to drain the bad gas from his tank before it caused any serious damage to his car.
“Literally the next morning when I woke up to take my daughter to work the fuel had time to really separate in my tank... As soon as I started it up she started coughing and I immediately knew something was wrong with my car,” said Wooten.
On Friday, Fox 4's Cape Coral Community Correspondent Colton Chavez asked the store owner about the contaminated gas but the owner chose not to comment.
Kerrie Wooten told Colton she had brought a sample of the contaminated gas into the station and showed the owner.
“We went down to the gas station as soon as we realized brought them the sample gas to show them asked if they were going to shut down the pumps they said they would not," said Wooten.
On Friday, the station did have signs written in pencil on the pumps saying "Regular Only"
On Friday, FDACS said a re-sample at the Cape Coral 7-Eleven was scheduled for that day.
