Time ran out for Pinellas residents who didn’t evacuate for Helene

After days of spaghetti models on TV and hurricane chatter in line at the 7-Eleven, handyman Mark Etting knew a storm was coming and that everyone in his Madeira Beach neighborhood had been ordered to evacuate.

He lived in a converted garden shed on a client’s property, but shortly before noon, hours before Hurricane Helene was forecast to batter Tampa Bay, he planned to ride it out.

Then Etting walked across the street for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, where a wave tumbled him like a “300-pound linebacker.”