'Still suffering': Residents in Florida's new hurricane alley brace for Helene impact

Getting pummeled again and again by hurricanes has left many in Florida's Taylor County tired, alarmed and apprehensive after the latest forecast showing a possible Category 3 storm might hit the area this week.

Jody Roberts, a lifelong resident of Perry, Florida, known as the "Tree Capital of the South," said that residents are gun shy. After Hurricane Idalia, then Hurricane Debby, area residents aren't taking any chances, he said.

"We're getting tired of this," Roberts told the USA TODAY Network - Florida.

Tropical Cyclone Nine in the Gulf of Mexico, soon-to-be Helene, shows Florida's Big Bend as a likely destination for a Thursday landfall of a possible Category 3 hurricane, according to forecasters and models.

The system will strengthen over the next day or two as it moves into the Gulf, where rapid intensification is possible, the National Hurricane Center said.

It's still too early to pinpoint the exact location of landfall, but the storm could land in Taylor County again – making it the third time the area has been hit by a hurricane in a little over a year.

It could also veer west and follow the trajectory of Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 hurricane in 2018 that snapped trees like twigs and left a path of destruction across Florida's northern coast.

Joe Worster, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, said the hurricane was expected to strengthen into a high-end Category 2 storm, on the cusp of a Category 3, as it approaches the Gulf Coast on Thursday morning.

"I don't have any words of wisdom right now, just have to take it day by day and see what happens," Roberts said.

'We're still suffering'

Michelle Curtis has worked in the forestry industry for more than 50 years, and said the region is still reeling from the one – two punch Idalia and Debby delivered. 

“We’re still suffering," said Curtis.

Idalia, which made landfall as a Category 3 storm, littered U.S. 98 with tree limbs, branches and broken power poles. More than 300,000 homes across Northeast Florida lost electrical power. 

The two storms created about a combined $500 million in agricultural losses, according to a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences analysis based on producer surveys. 

There was so much damage in Perry that locals joked their slogan had become “Blue Tarp City.” 

Those blue tarps were still on roofs in neighborhoods across town when Hurricane Debby, a Category 1, hit the county in August.

"They didn’t have insurance to repair them,” Curtis said.

Curtis, who has a tree farm, said Debby laid flat 70 acres of year-and-half old pine she was growing. 

“Hurricanes have these wind patterns – it could have been tornadoes Debbie spun," Curtis sighed. 

"But they were beautiful,” she said of the trees.

Hoping for a reprieve from Helene

Residents of Cedar Key, a small coastal community southwest of Gainesville, are just getting over a large fire that damaged four businesses Thursday.

“If a hurricane comes in, that debris is going to go everywhere,” said Debbie McDonald, the general manager of the Cedar Inn Motel. “That’s going to be a mess all in itself.”

When Idalia hit Cedar Key last year, the water seeped in through the first floor of the motel and ruined the tile, McDonald said.

She said she knew they were in trouble when The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore came to stay at her property.

“When Jim Cantore shows up in your town, you’re screwed," she said.

She hopes he doesn't come back this time around.

Jackson County farmers, hit badly by Michael, prepping for latest threat

The storm threatened to make landfall just two weeks shy of the six-year anniversary of Hurricane Michael, which took a heavy toll on Panhandle farms, wiping out timber and other crops.

Jeff Pittman, a fourth-generation peanut and cotton farmer in Jackson County, watched the forecast with trepidation. Michael damaged his peanut crop, destroyed his cotton crop, killed livestock and wrecked barns, fences and irrigation systems.

His JG Farm, located just north of Two Egg, was prepping for the latest storm’s arrival. Just 10 days into peanut-harvesting season, he said they stopped the inverters that dig up the crop. He was also making sure generators were in place to supply water to his and his neighbors’ cows.

“We’re taking all precautions, everything we can think to do,” Pittman said. “We’re taking this very seriously. It looks like it could be a very serious situation come Thursday.”

Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com. James Call, a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau, can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and on X @CallTallahassee. Jeff Burlew, investigative reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat, can be reached at jburlew@tallahassee.com.