Pinellas County is evacuating some of its most vulnerable residents, while measuring the shorelines to prepare for Helene.
The tropical storm is expected to be a Category 2 or 3 hurricane when it passes through the Gulf Coast and lands in the Panhandle on Thursday.
It's projected to pour 5-8 feet of storm surge onto the Tampa Bay region — causing significant beach erosion — and up to 15 feet onto the Nature Coast.
Evacuations
Pinellas County issued a mandatory order Wednesday for residents living in Zone A or any mobile home park to evacuate ahead of Helene.
Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said people shouldn't get complacent by seeing Pinellas outside Helene's direct path. The county expects to get 5-8 feet of storm surge
On Tuesday, Pinellas has ordered 26 hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Zone A to evacuate.
The two hospitals, 14 nursing homes and 10 assisted living facilities are being evacuated early because they take longer to do so.
Perkins is urging everyone to know their zone and to start preparing homes now.
“Don't panic,” Perkins said. “Have a plan, be ready to put it in place if we call for those evacuations or other protective measures."
She said the county will open emergency shelters if needed. Schools are closed in the county Wednesday and Thursday to accommodate that.
The shelters may be needed because officials say Helene could have much worse flooding impacts than some other recent storms.
“I need everybody to be paying attention to the forecast,” Perkins said. “I need everybody to make sure you know your zone and know that you're at risk for flooding.”
Erosion
The predicted storm surge event will likely be a lot more than Hurricane Idalia, which brought just over 4 feet of storm surge last year and flooded more than 1,500 homes, Perkins said.
Beach renourishment efforts have been underway since Idalia eroded multiple shorelines, but Perkins said residents near certain beaches, like Treasure Island and Sunset, could be more vulnerable than in previous years.
The county recently restored the dune systems along seven of its beaches: Belleair, Indian Rocks, Indian Shores, Madeira, Pass-a-Grille, Sunset and Upham.
David Connor, the public information manager for Pinellas, said they built up dunes and reinforced them with strongly rooted plants, like sea oats and seagrasses.
"Those dunes are important because they're really the first line of defense against the storm surge, against waves, and they protect the infrastructure and the people living on the other side of those dunes," he said.
County crews are surveying the whole length of the dune system along the beaches, he said, because they'll use those measurements to calculate how much erosion Helene causes.
Connor said the storm is really wide — in the top 90th percentile of the storms they’ve been tracking recently.
“And what that means is that the winds can be felt far away, and the storm surge can have a pretty big impact on us,” he said. “Stay tuned. Stay informed.”
