Tampa Bay strays between apathy and alarm as Tropical Storm Helene looms

Tampa Bay officials began evacuations Tuesday afternoon ahead of Tropical Storm Helene, which is expected to make landfall as a major hurricane on Florida’s Gulf Coast in the next few days.

Some locals, like those milling about the Tarpon Springs sponge docks, seemed unbothered. Others, including St. Petersburg residents who waited in long lines for sandbags, were busy preparing.

Tampa stormwater workers hurried to clear drainage systems of debris. Clearwater Beach lifeguards dragged lookout towers further ashore. Duke Energy readied its mobile command center.

Storm surge estimates Tuesday predicted water higher than the region has experienced in recent history — up to 8 feet in Pinellas and coastal Hillsborough, and 10 feet in Pasco.

But residents didn’t seem to be taking Helene too seriously yet, said Mike Clay, chief meteorologist for Spectrum Bay News 9, and there were two reasons why.

Recent sunny days have kept thoughts of severe storms far away, and the forecast cone is giving Tampa Bay a false sense of security, he said.

Local and state officials warned the storm could be life threatening, with dangers reaching far outside the “cone of uncertainty” and especially to the system’s east.

Meteorologists also stressed how large Tropical Storm Helene appears to be: Forecasts put the storm’s wind radius in the 90th percentile for size among similarly located hurricanes.

Hernando County was first to order a mandatory evacuation starting Wednesday at 8 a.m. for zones A, B and C, including residents living in coastal and low-lying areas, and manufactured homes.

But Tampa Bay counties to the south were slower to act. That could narrow a window that forecasters say is getting smaller by the hour — Helene is expected to gain speed and rapidly intensify into a major hurricane as it approaches the northeastern Gulf Coast on Thursday.

Pinellas County officials gave the greenlight to evacuate long-term health care facilities in Zone A Tuesday, but did not say when they would ask other residents to move to higher ground.

“We are in close contact with (the National Hurricane Center) and are working to get as accurate, timely data as we can to make the right call,” said David Connor, a spokesperson for the county.

County Administrator Barry Burton, during a meeting Tuesday in which Pinellas commissioners issued a state of emergency, said evacuations were “likely.”

Tampa and St. Petersburg mayors ordered similar states of emergency later in the afternoon.

Andrew Fossa, Pasco County Emergency Management director, told the Tampa Bay Times on Monday that the county tries to leave 24 to 48 hours open for an evacuation. By late afternoon Tuesday, Pasco residents still hadn’t received instructions to leave.

“We’re going to have barely 24 hours to actually start pulling the trigger,” Fossa said Monday.

Gulf Harbors, a 5,000-resident community on the Gulf of Mexico in unincorporated Pasco County, remained mostly quiet Tuesday morning.

While on a morning walk with his French bulldog, London, Keith Saunders said the lack of preparation is not surprising.

“There is some apathy over the storms, familiarity breeds contempt,” Saunders said.

Saunders recalls water swelling over his seawall three or four times over the years, but the surge has never breached his garage or house.

During Ian it was close. Saunders said storm surge, combined with a high tide, was only a few feet from entering his home. It’s not the possibly life-threatening danger posed by the hurricane that concerns Saunders, but the likely damage to his house.

“As a property owner, I am concerned,” he said. “It’s the aftermath that is painful.”

At Fossil Park in St. Petersburg, James Burnett, 40, was up early filling sandbags for himself and others in preparation for the storm.

“We flood with rainstorms,” Burnett said of his apartment off Fourth Street. “Usually hurricanes pull the water away, but this time it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

Expecting more than six inches of rain ahead of Helene’s arrival, Pinellas County and the Southwest Florida Water Management District also began drawing down water levels at local lakes.

Helene‘s predicted 250-mile wind span was expected to reach Tampa Bay on Thursday. Tropical storm force winds could reach Pinellas County by 8 a.m. Thursday with a departure at 7 p.m., according to emergency managers.

Absent evacuation orders, official messaging around the region was confusing at times Tuesday.

St. Petersburg incorrectly listed the city’s Stormwater Pavement and Traffic Operations Building as one of its main sandbag locations. That site provides sandbags year-round but closes during storms.

The city shuttered its sandbag operation there less than two hours after it opened. Dozens of cars idled outside the building early Tuesday to pick up sandbags that were no longer available. Traffic had slowed along Ninth Avenue North as the line of cars spilled out onto the main road.

Inside a Ruskin Home Depot, storm preppers filled their carts with supplies and asked employees to cut plywood in window-shaped pieces.

Responses to the expected hurricane were mixed across the Tampa Bay area. But for Greg Cowan, 38, a Gulf Harbors resident who spends a lot of time fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, Helene’s march toward the coast feels unlike other storms he has experienced.

“There’s something different in the air, the wind, the water already,” Cowan said. “I hope I am wrong and my bones are lying to me.”

Staff writers Max Chesnes, Douglas R. Clifford, Olivia George, Emily L. Mahoney, Tony Marrero, Tracey McManus, Michaela Mulligan, Lauren Peace, Zachary T. Sampson and Colleen Wright contributed to this report.

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