Hurricane Helene brought upwards of six feet of storm surge to the neighborhoods of St. Petersburg.
Photo courtesy of Stephanie James
By Irena Mesa
The one-two punch of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in September and October 2024 left the Tampa Bay area reeling. A year later, and three months into this year’s hurricane season, many residents are nervous that the tropics will throw another major storm at the region.
Stephanie James, the assistant director of digital learning and innovative education at the University of South Floria St. Petersburg, is one such resident.
“I started getting wary once we moved in. The day the moving trucks came to my house in 2020, I checked my Ring camera and there was water in our yard,” James said. “We were sweeping water from a tropical storm out of the garage for the movers to get the boxes in.”
She later had multiple close calls with other storms flooding her neighborhood, but Helene was the worst that her family had experienced, with multiple feet of water flooding her home.
“My house looked like an episode of ‘Hoarders,’ because everything had shifted. We had side tables that ended up elsewhere in the house, and not even in the same room that they started in,” James said. “Everything was wet, smelly and gross — it was awful.”
Going into this hurricane season, she felt more secure about her own living situation, having recently signed a lease to rent a home outside of a flood zone.
Jessica Greenberg, a junior majoring in criminology and psychology at USF St. Petersburg, shared a similar feeling.
“There was some fear going into this season, but after going through it once I knew what to expect,” Greenberg said. “I know what my plan is and I would have known what to do unlike last year.”
Greenberg was living in USF St. Petersburg’s Pelican Apartments last year and was impacted by its closure following water damage caused by Hurricane Milton. She stayed with a friend in Tarpon Springs for the duration of the closure.
“It was rough having to leave for class two hours early compared to my usual ten minutes. It just threw off my routine a lot,” Greenberg said. “It really changed the way I organized my time and when I did my assignments.”
Photo courtesy Jessica Greenberg
The school’s communication through both the evacuation and return didn’t help her situation either.
“There was talk that we might have to evacuate, but they didn’t tell us until the day or so before which made it hard. We also had no idea when we would be able to move back in until the day before,” Greenberg said. “It was a lot of unknowns which did not help the situation.”
So far this hurricane season, there have been six tropical storms and one hurricane, all of which have stayed far away from the coastlines of Florida. As of mid-September last season, there were three tropical storms and five hurricanes, including Helene. Before Helene made landfall, Hurricane Debby was the only storm to have impacted Florida.
“I can’t believe we’re in week four of the semester and we haven’t had a single hurricane day or hurricane scare,” James said. “It’s been creepily quiet.”
While the season ends Nov. 30 and there is plenty of time for a storm to brew and hit the coastlines of Florida, all of the state’s residents are enjoying the quiet tropics so far.
“I’m definitely glad that we haven’t had any hurricanes this year, just because of the lack of communication,” Greenberg said. “I wouldn’t mind a small storm with no damage for an excuse to go home, though.”
