"This is it, folks," said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, which sits on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay. "Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now."
"Unless you really have a good reason to leave at this point, we suggest you just hunker down," Polk County Emergency Management Director Paul Womble said in a public update.
Tampa Bay, near the top of a long stretch of coastline that could be in the bull's-eye, has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century. "That doesn't mean that it couldn't happen," said Luisa Meshekoff, who nevertheless was staying put with her partner and eight cats in their home.
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