Residents of the booming region are confronting a new reality: Even when storms make landfall far away, their impact is being felt. Isabelle Taft repo

As Florida Storms Worsen, Some in Tampa Bay Wonder: Is Living There Worth It?

submited by

Style Pass

2024-09-28 14:00:06

Residents of the booming region are confronting a new reality: Even when storms make landfall far away, their impact is being felt.

Isabelle Taft reported from Tampa, St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach, Fla.; Elisabeth Parker and Valerie Boey Ramsey reported from Tampa, Fla., and Patricia Mazzei reported from Perry, Fla.

Living near the gleaming expanse of Tampa Bay in Florida used to require a certain calculus: Fear the Big One, a powerful hurricane that would tear into the densely populated region and drown people and property. But also rest assured that most Gulf of Mexico storms are near-misses — one has not directly hit Tampa since 1921 — and keep enjoying life on the coast.

Lately, though, the calculus has changed. A rash of Gulf storms in recent years, culminating with Hurricane Helene on Thursday, has given way to a new reality for the booming region’s residents: Hurricanes that remain hundreds of miles away are likely to wreak havoc on the Tampa Bay region, as are smaller storms.

Helene, a Category 4 hurricane, made landfall near Perry, Fla., some 200 miles north of Tampa. It followed a path similar to Hurricane Idalia in August of last year and Hurricane Debby last month. All three storms put wide swaths of the Tampa Bay region underwater, though none more than Helene, which brought storm surge into neighborhoods that had not seen such flooding in decades — or ever.