These Tampa Bay residents moved before a new hurricane season. They told us why.

The Tampa Bay area’s vulnerabilities to hurricanes were peeled away last year, exposing painful recovery woes after the one-two punch from Helene and Milton.

While many people are staying and rebuilding, others have sold their properties and moved away — safe from the threat of hurricanes growing more dangerous from climate change.

They aren’t alone.

In the six months after Helene, home sales in flooded neighborhoods diverged from those in the rest of Pinellas County, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis of real estate data and National Hurricane Center storm surge predictions.

About 8% more sales occurred in areas with the worst flooding than the same period the year before, records show. Across the rest of the county, sales volume was down 8%.

A February report from the nonprofit First Street Foundation, which studies how climate change affects real estate, projected more than 55 million Americans will move from areas with high climate risks by 2055, including about 5 million people this year.

The report used Tampa as a case study. It noted that even as the city’s population is projected to grow by more than 33% by 2055, property values could fall, spurred by spiking insurance costs that would be expected to push residents out. An anticipated 213% rise in property insurance premiums over the next three decades would drive property values down by nearly a quarter, the group projected.

Climate change influences how people move, though it’s often a complex mixture of factors that motivate people to leave an area, said Kerilyn Schewel, a co-director of Duke University’s Program on Climate, Resilience and Mobility.

In interviews with the Tampa Bay Times, residents who moved after last year’s hurricanes often cited a mosaic of motivations. Chief among them: a blistering cost of living, hurricane fatigue and the state’s divisive politics.

Here are the stories of some who have left.

St. Petersburg → Alpena, Michigan

On the ninth day without power after Milton had walloped her family’s home in Lakewood Estates, Laura Coley had enough.

The 27-year-old paralegal is a St. Petersburg native who lived here all her life. But as housing prices, summer heat and hurricane risk increased over the years, so did the itch to leave.

Helene flooded the homes of close friends, then Milton left her family in the dark for nearly two weeks.

“‘You know what? This it it. I can’t do this anymore,’” Coley thought last fall. “Helene and Milton put the nail in the coffin.”

Last month, she rented a moving pod and drove more than 1,400 miles to Alpena, Michigan, to live with an aunt and uncle as she hunts for a permanent home. Coley said affordability and the rising risks from climate change drove her decision.

Her parents moved, too, leaving behind their decades in St. Petersburg to begin again in Greer, South Carolina.

The start of hurricane season looks a lot different for Coley this year, with Lake Huron replacing the Gulf of Mexico as the closest body of water. While she worries for her older sister, who lives in Largo, Coley said she doesn’t miss preparing for potential cyclones.

“It’s nice that I personally don’t have to be buying my hurricane supplies, making sure my car is gassed up, that I have extra water stashed or making sure I’ve got my portable chargers ready,” she said.

“It feels good that I don’t have to worry about that now.”

Seminole → Minneapolis

The night Helene sent a wall of water into the Tampa Bay area, Brie Melton was in her Seminole home, worrying for her coworkers.

Melton heard the city of St. Petersburg’s Northeast Water Reclamation Facility was inundated with surge, and as her colleagues evacuated, their truck stalled in the floodwaters.

A high-water vehicle pulled them to safety as city officials shut down the plant.

Melton enjoys working in the wastewater industry, but this incident during Helene added to her worries.

“My husband and I want to start a family, and we don’t feel safe doing that here anymore,” Melton said.

“We’re tired of feeling like there’s nothing we can do.”

In February, Melton loaded cardboard Home Depot boxes with years of memories into the back of her Kia Soul and hit the road with her husband, Kevin. Her new hometown: Minneapolis.

She now works as a wastewater plant operator for the Twin Cities metro area.

Melton said she’s enjoying her life in a cooler climate. She recently talked with her sister, who will be moving into her Seminole home, about tropical weather that forecasters had been eyeing off the coast of Mexico.

“I’m glad I’m not dealing with that anymore,” she said. “The grass is greener sometimes in other places.”

Riverview → Cincinnati

Amanda Tornwall already planned to leave Florida last fall. The two hurricanes validated her decision, she said.

At 34, Tornwall lived in Florida for most of her life, working mostly restaurant and service jobs. Each time her mother’s low-lying Riverview home fell into the crosshairs of a hurricane forecast, she would take off work to shield the family heirlooms from floods.

The sight of her grandmother’s antique curio cabinet on the bed was always the signal a hurricane was on the way.

“It’s so draining, emotionally, to have to do that every year,” Tornwall said. She recalled surviving storms in the early 2000s, and how, back then, Florida had less development than it does now. More concrete these days means more flooding.

“I feel almost like I have (post-traumatic stress disorder) now because of the weather,” she said.

When Milton knocked out the power, Tornwall fired up a generator and housed family members on her living room floor. She drove around in her Hyundai picking up gas, supplies and food as the region recovered.

The single mother of two teenage daughters said hurricane risk was just one of the reasons she decided to move with her kids in October to Cincinnati. Florida’s increasingly out-of-reach affordability and politics in the school system also contributed, she said.

Tornwall was frustrated with how state leaders have downplayed climate change, especially in a state with a heightened vulnerability to storm surge, she said.

She was one week from beginning the move with her boyfriend in October when the storms hit. The aftermath drained the savings they had put aside for moving expenses. She was brought to tears as she reflected on the hard few weeks after Helene and Milton.

Tornwall is happier now, in Cincinnati, where she manages a restaurant. But there’s one emotion she’s having a hard time shaking: guilt.

She feels bad to leave her family and friends, knowing another hurricane season is here.

“There’s no reason for the people in Tampa Bay to not have their needs met,” she said. “I should be able to live in the city that I love.”

Dunedin → Melbourne

Jules Stewart’s Dunedin home, a few blocks from the Gulf, looked as if it were made of candy, splashed in a Creamsicle orange and bubblegum pink.

She’d lived there for about 25 years and in Dunedin even longer.

Stewart, now 55, moved to the small Gulfside town from Long Island at 24.

After a year, she got a tattoo on her hip: Dunedin 12-26-94.

“It meant everything to me,” Stewart said. “I never, never expected to leave Dunedin, not that house, ever.”

During Helene, water surged about 3½ feet high into the home. Its insides — once filled with David Bowie albums and science fiction novels — were ruined.

Two weeks later, Stewart and her husband realized they couldn’t stay in the house.

“It’s dangerous,” Stewart said. “It’s going to happen again, and it’s foolish to think that it’s not.”

The couple looked to other areas in Pinellas County, but homes were out of their price range.

In December, the couple sold the home to investors, just a day after Stewart’s 30th anniversary in Dunedin.

Stewart quit her job, and moved with her husband and four cats to Melbourne on the opposite coast.

They found an affordable mid-century home, made of brick and 35 feet above sea-level.

They’re grateful for their new house and their new life, but they say it hasn’t been easy.

“It was really difficult to go through, start your whole life over again in your mid-50s and late 50s,” Stewart said.

When Stewart thinks back on her Dunedin home, she speaks as if it has a beating heart, and she mourns its loss.

She doesn’t want anyone to live there, she doesn’t believe anyone should live there.

“I can tell you, I know this with certainty, whoever moves into that home or the redone home, they’re never going to love it the way I love it,” Stewart said.

St. Petersburg → Pittsburgh

Growing up in Florida, Anna House and her family opened the windows and turned off the air conditioning often during the cooler months.

But over the years, she said, those cool days have become less common, resulting in fewer afternoons with open windows.

House, 37, her husband and two children, 4 and 2, had planned on leaving Florida. They were tired of the stubborn heat and wanted to find a home where seasons changed. But that was an idea for the future.

That was, until their Edgemoor home flooded during Helene. House’s family had to move in with her father in Gulfport.

“I went from myself and my dog Radar, to two more adults, two grandkids,” John Avery, House’s dad, said.

The family stayed with Avery for about a month before they moved to Pittsburgh.

“We basically packed some suitcases, hopped on the plane, came here, kind of just said ‘we’ll figure it out,’” House said.

The family has yet to sell their home, and they still aren’t sure exactly what they’ll do with it.

But it’s a relief, House said, to be settled somewhere else, far from hurricanes. There will be no more mad dash runs to the grocery store ahead of the storm. No more days without electricity in sweltering heat. And no more evacuating an entire family and pets.

“But it’s also scary, because we still have that house there, and my parents still live there,” House said.

Avery had considered following his daughter and grandchildren to Pittsburgh, but he’s never been a fan of the cold. He feels safe in his Gulfport home.

“My first reaction was I don’t want to have my grandkids grow up and me not be a part of that,” Avery said.

“But I’m more thinking that it might make a nice summer retreat to head up that way.”

St. Petersburg → Newburg, Indiana

Patricia Dysart has lived through a lot of near-miss hurricanes in her more than 20 years in Tampa Bay.

“Milton scared me more than the others had scared me … all the stories of people after Helene, that their houses got flooded when they never got flooded before,” Dysart said.

She wasn’t in a flood or evacuation zone. But in early October, Dysart, 62, didn’t feel safe as Milton spun toward Florida.

She packed her belongings and four dogs and met her sister and nephew in Georgia. They traveled to Indiana, where Dysart’s sister lives.

She has not been back since.

When she made it to Indiana, Dysart enjoyed the changing leaves and her family was close by. Indiana was more affordable, too. Cheaper homes and cheaper insurance.

“The insurance environment down there always made me nervous,” Dysart said. “I’m sure, like a lot of people, I just would pay the premium and cross my fingers.”

After Milton, Dysart hired a real estate agent that took care of everything, and within a month her home sold.

She misses the Rays, Florida’s warmth and Publix.

In Indiana, she’s had to deal with ice storms and tornadoes. She’s also had to do tedious tasks associated with uprooting a life, like going to the DMV or finding a vet.

But Dysart has grown comfortable in her home, where her neighbors mostly keep to themselves and are kind.

“The people changed, or maybe I changed … It just seemed like Florida had just gotten a little angrier.”

St. Petersburg → South Jordan, Utah

In their new, two-story Utah home, Joyce and Larry Gesick feel like teenagers again.

The couple sold their two-bedroom condo in the Clam Bayou area of St. Petersburg to follow Joyce’s daughter to Utah.

Her daughter feared for their safety, and that hurricanes were worsening.

“I think that if we felt like the current administration believed in climate change and was genuinely trying to do something to mitigate it … we would have been in a different mindset to maybe try to stick it out,” Joyce Gesick, 67, said.

There was also the financial burden.

The Gesicks had moved to Florida from Arizona to retire. Once they got here, insurance costs were high and their HOA fees doubled.

They both worked for extra cash in retirement. Larry worked at Publix while Joyce worked from home.

When Joyce’s daughter returned from a trip to Utah, she presented the idea: They could all live together, under one roof, and share the costs.

The Gesicks reasoned they would have family to care for them as they got older, and eventually, they’d have to give up their stuff, anyway. Now, they have more financial freedom.

The new home doesn’t quite soothe the sting of giving up the condo they had poured their heart and money into.

It was supposed to be their last stop.

But the couple is elated to be far from storm threats.

“We’re going to be fretting the hurricanes that roll through there,” Joyce said. “But we’re just so relieved to not have to worry about it.”

• • •

Times staff writer Teghan Simonton contributed to this report.

The Tampa Bay Times launched the Environment Hub in 2025 to focus on some of Florida‘s most urgent and enduring challenges. You can contribute through our journalism fund by clicking here.

For Tampa Bay, Helene was the worst storm in a century

More hurricanes are slamming the Gulf Coast. Is this the new normal?

Want to know what areas are flooding in Tampa Bay? Here’s where to look.

Checklists for building all kinds of storm kits.