This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] The 2025 hurricane season is upon us after last year's historic impacts in the Tampa Bay area.

See how WEDU is keeping you safe with our Florida Storms app.

The Florida Public Radio's Emergency Network and access to local experts that you know and trust.

Hear from meteorologist Dennis Phillips on lessons learned from Helene and Milton, and see how he prepares for hurricane season.

You'll hear from survivors still in recovery as another hurricane season begins, and advice from the crisis center to help mitigate anxiety that may be triggered by that first storm on the horizon.

All that and more is next on this hurricane edition of Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back.

I'm Lissette Campos.

Last year's hurricane season took an enormous toll on the Tampa Bay area.

So for the next two weeks, Florida This Week and WEDU will be sharing information to help us all feel safer during this hurricane season.

You may not have realized that WEDU is a resource for you during storms and other emergencies.

We're part of the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network, also called FPREN.

To download the app, you can visit WEDU and select your county.

That will give you up to date emergency information and weather stories.

The app, also called Florida Storms, puts your safety first forecast can be customized for up to 16 locations and geo-targeted alerts come straight to your phone from official sources, including advisories from the National Hurricane Center Lightning and strong storm alerts.

Evacuation zones, routes and open shelters.

Preseason checklists and risk assessment, as well as storm survival tips and recovery resources.

Remember, these are free, life saving public media resources designed to help you.

Designed to help our community during emergencies and hurricanes.

Meteorologist Denis Phillips of ABC Action News in Tampa Bay is someone who knows all about severe weather.

For decades, he's helped millions of viewers during approaching storms and severe weather.

During our visit together in his studio, we talked about lessons learned from the 2024 hurricane season.

Storms are pushing more water than they used to.

I mean, the numbers don't lie.

They are what they are.

But, you know, I remember Ada several years ago.

Tropical storm.

Minimal storm.

All of a sudden, they were getting a six foot surge in areas of John's past where they've never flooded before.

And you know, we're talking about storm surge.

I mean, you can kind of see right here with our area, we had about an eight foot surge in many spots.

Well, a three foot surge usually is something that we can tolerate.

But once we start looking at a surge that's higher to nearly six feet, which is what we had, or even as high as eight feet, that's when structures can be devastated.

And I think we all know people who had their homes inundated.

And last year was a very interesting year in terms of weather, because we had all of the above.

When it comes to the threats from a hurricane, you know, we obviously had the surge with Helene.

But you know what Lee said?

That storm was 100 miles offshore.

Yes, we got that surge and it was 100 miles offshore.

And with Milton, there was a ton of flooding with Milton, but it wasn't surge.

It was rainwater.

And matter of fact, with Milton it made landfall.

Siesta Key area.

All the water in our area pushed out, so we had a reverse surge.

As a matter of fact, we got no surge at all with Milton.

But what we got was two feet of rain.

So there were areas all around the bay area that flooded, not from gulf water being pushed in, but from rainwater.

And then of course, we had the wind with with the trop and every place else.

And, you know, even with Debby, earlier in the year, Manatee County had two feet of rain.

So we really did see a little bit of everything in those storms.

What's in the forecast?

What are you looking at possible for this year?

When we look at a long range forecast, I always take it with a grain of salt because there's so many things that come into play.

But usually June and July are pretty quiet months for us.

Typically August, you start to see things building and then September and October, as you just said, that happened last year.

That's kind of when it peaks.

If we have 25 named storms around the middle of the ocean, who cares if it doesn't hit anybody, right?

But if we have a quiet year where we might only have 4 or 5 storms, but if one of them hits us directly, then it's a busy year.

So, you know, I think it's kind of a a misleading thing.

On how many storms are going to form.

I mean, to answer your question, I think we'll probably end up with 15, 20 named storms, maybe a a few less than we had last year for a couple of reasons.

But the issue is with us is the water in the Gulf and the water in the Caribbean is still really warm.

Warmer than normal?

Yes.

So when a storm that develops goes over that warm water, it's going to get stronger.

What would you say were the biggest lessons learned from last year's hurricane season?

I think the expression hide from the wind.

Run from the water is the absolute most important thing that you'll learn.

I'll say it again.

All that damage with Helene.

That storm is 100 miles off shore.

So to me, the lessons are.

Water is really the big issue with hurricanes.

We all think about the wind.

We all see pictures of the trop and the and the roof blowing off from the wind.

And those are visuals that we get.

But overall, the damage from wind with those storms paled in comparison to the damage of the water.

So for folks who live inland, a lot of times you stay put.

If you're not in a flood zone, you're probably safer to stay put.

But if you're on the coast and you're hearing mandatory evacuation, I'd be willing to bet this year there's a lot of folks that maybe will leave, whereas last year they didn't.

We live on the Gulf and we are going to see storms.

We are.

Now, I will tell you one thing.

Most hurricanes that come in from the South, they want to go north, and they'll usually go toward the Panhandle.

It takes a lot more for a storm to hook into our area for a number of reasons, but it usually doesn't happen.

So the point is, direct landfalls in our area are still rare.

But what I'm seeing more is it doesn't have to be a direct landfall to still have a big impact on the area, and that usually is water.

That's a life saving perspective.

Thank you Dennis.

Thanks.

[music] Last year's hurricane strikes of Helene and Milton left thousands of Tampa Bay residents and businesses damaged or destroyed.

And for many, they are still in the long process of recovery.

And the upcoming hurricane season has the region on edge.

Joining me now are several Bay area residents who were hit by the storms and are still in the process of recovery and rebuilding.

Ashley Butler is a business owner and entrepreneur who suffered damage to both her businesses and her home.

Mike Dyson is a longtime journalist in Tampa Bay who lost the home in which he raised his family.

And Clara Reynolds is the president and CEO of the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.

This is the organization that provides crisis and trauma services for those in need.

Thank you so much for coming.

So glad to have your perspectives as we head into another hurricane season after last year's very traumatic one.

Mike, I'd like to start with you.

Share with our viewers what happened in your life.

Well, um, our home, which was right off of Westshore in South Tampa, had four feet of water in Helene.

And then when Milton came, we had a bunch of oak trees came through the the roof.

So basically we lost everything in our house, all our furniture.

We lost our cars.

Lost the house.

Um, it was strange being on that end of a hurricane, because I had covered hurricanes going back to 1985 and Elena that never got closer than 60 miles to Tampa Bay but did devastating damage along the beaches.

And then I spent four weeks in homestead after Andrew.

Hurricane Andrew.

And, um, it was devastating then.

But then to be a victim of it here was tough.

The way I got through it was in so many hurricanes, particularly Andrew.

Uh, people didn't survive.

And Andrew, we saw body bag after body bag after body bag.

For you and your family.

What would you say was the biggest lesson learned from last year's season that really changed how you're going to approach hurricane season?

Yeah, well.

Well, the one thing I learned that it's ironic, I always said to folks that if they tell you you have to evacuate, you must evacuate.

Well, we had three dogs with us, and I was we were trying to figure out what to do.

Our house had never flooded or anything because it was set back.

It was, but it was built in 1961, so it wasn't up high.

So, you know, we're going along and then all of a sudden the water starts coming in, starts coming in.

My wife was freaking out.

I mean, and I was just going, oh my goodness.

But it was too late to try to to leave.

And plus the cars were were all flooded and all that.

The water finally stopped.

The one the one thing that came through that came from almost everybody who didn't evacuate after the storm.

People said to me, I was a damn fool.

I put my life and my family's life at risk.

I heard.

It raised other.

Ways.

Yeah.

Yeah I know.

Well, right.

But.

But the thing was, we were never in real danger.

I mean, four feet of water in your house is not a good thing.

But we weren't in danger from the wind or anything.

Which which oftentimes kills so many people.

But still, if they say evacuate.

The only reason we didn't leave was because of the dogs.

There were three dogs, you know.

Take the dogs with you.

Take the dogs.

You have to take the dogs with you.

But you got to find someone who's saying, oh, yeah, bring your three dogs and your family over.

Over here.

But that's the most important.

If they say evacuate.

Evacuate.

And, Ashley, you had, like I call it, the double whammy because not only were you worried about your home, you're worried about your employees that work for you and all the businesses.

Tell us about that experience in terms of the business aspect.

So our organization is a franchise organization.

So we have 16 locations, 11 different franchisees, um, just under like just over 100 employees throughout the entire system.

And so not only were revenues affected, which is the the low hanging fruit to okay, revenues will be affected.

The care of the people who are in our care was heavy.

And then you had all these big decisions to make, um around how do you pull it together, and how do you pull it together and not let anyone fall flat?

And so whereas some people may not have had any emergency funding, how do you get resources to people while you hold on to resources?

And how do you advise franchisees how to do that when there's a clear separation between us, um, providing information on how they should take care of their employees as a franchisee franchisor model.

So what we really learned was to take it one day at a time and take it one issue at a time and just discuss it, create a solution.

And then, like you said, now in the aftermath, come up with a plan on how do you make sure we do this best moving forward?

And you had the employees who were affected.

You had franchisees, franchisees who were affected in in the range, right?

Some were very affected, others not so much.

Others were devastated.

How did you handle that?

Well, we're in five different counties here in west central Florida, as far north as Citrus, and then we're down as far south is Pinellas at this time.

And so in Citrus County, Crystal River, the franchisee there, Rick, they had gone through tornadoes the season before.

They had already started bouncing back.

And then they had amazing flooding.

I mean, like it was all over the news, amazing flooding to where when it was time to open back up, they really couldn't open back up because roadways weren't there.

And then also there weren't any cars because cars got flooded.

That's right.

And so it was um, it was a practice in being peaceful with what you have.

That's what it was.

It was a mental practice.

On being peaceful with what you have and being grateful for what you have.

There weren't any body bags.

And so we just worked the problem backwards nice and easy and just listened to them.

And as their employees needed things, we reached out to our HR team and they found resources in the area to refer them to.

We were posting in our slack communication.

Hey, here's a list of people where you can get some help.

As soon as Florida released some of the funding, um, through the state.

When our governor opened up some funding, we made sure everybody could get to the application quickly, that they understood the timelines, advised them on not taking out the risky, risky loans because there's all these merchant capital advanced things that you can think are a solution, but they're really not.

And so there was a lot of coaching and bonding through the pain.

But you you were doing that with the the family of ice cold air franchises.

But what about at home.

What was going on?

It was your home impacted as well.

We were actually in the fourth quarter of completing our custom built here in Hampton Terrace.

So we um, that was stalled and we were living in a friend's home, which was not too far from there renting it.

They were getting ready to move back to Florida or back to Tampa.

So we were moving and packing, getting ready to leave our rental house while our friends who were renting to us were coming back home, protecting their house, protecting our house, protecting our rental property.

protecting the shops.

And so we were cooking on the grill out in the backyard, offering resources to other tents or saying, hey, we have a deep freezer full of meat.

Would you like to come get some meats?

And so it really pulled community together, and it really just showed us who we were and who we could be in the midst of everything, nothing and uncertainty.

I mean, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to say that I was a victim of the hurricane as well.

I mean, we had five feet of water in our home in Redington Shores, and it just felt like somebody took a big, gigantic bucket and swooshed the water in and everything just went up to the corner.

Well, yeah, they floated.

In our house.

We had this heavy couch.

I could hardly move.

And it was it floated up to the fireplace from from the wall.

It was like, how how can this be happening?

But when I as bad as that was for our family, it has been nothing compared to the battle with the insurance that's happened afterwards And so many people focus on the storm.

But it's the aftermath of that storm that really is so incredibly difficult.

And so the the lesson that I learned was, I will never do this without a public adjuster, someone who will represent me and my family and my interests with the insurance company, because I always thought that following all the rules, having insurance, you know, securing your home, the sandbags, the shutters, all that.

Worst case scenario, you'd be okay because the system would take care of you.

And that has not been what I found.

Well, okay.

With us, the flood insurance was great, but the homeowner's insurance said, well, it was a flood.

Well, after the oak trees came over.

If it's damage under four feet one, the flood will cover it.

If it's above four feet, the property insurance will cover.

In my case, it's been the opposite.

The flood insurance has been a disaster.

Um, and then the property insurance has been fine.

And so what I find is, as we get closer to that June 1st date.

Heaven forbid that first world come on the map.

Um, it's almost like a trigger.

I, you know, so many people tell me they're feeling very, very anxious.

Um.

Clara.

I mean, you've heard the stories.

You know what?

How do you deal with this?

I think, first of all, the the beautiful thing right here is that you all are laughing about it right now.

I mean, you can retell this horrifically traumatizing story with a bit of laughter, and I think that's such a healthy response when you're able to get there.

I think, Lisette, to your point, we are seeing so many people who have not experienced Mike and Ashley, what you all have, um, you've got folks that are still fighting insurance, um, who have lost their jobs, maybe lost income.

So they are not just emotionally impacted, they are economically impacted.

And as we talked about before, when you see your children who are now the first storms, you know, happened a couple of weeks ago and kids are hiding under their bed.

They're terrified.

So it is that word trigger, meaning that you you are experiencing something right now, but you're flashing back to what happened.

And that can be so difficult to manage and to manage the anxiety, because that's what we hear all the time.

Folks calling the crisis center going, I'm already starting to worry.

I'm already starting to feel anxious.

And so a lot of what we talk about is, okay, how do you reduce that anxiety?

You deal with the fear of the unknown.

What can you control?

Take care of what you control, and then kind of work through with your family about the things that you that may happen that you won't have any control over.

And I and I love the fact that our panelists really represent the community.

You have a business owner who wasn't just worried about herself, was worried about the people in her community that work for her.

You have Mike, who is the person who thought this would never happen to me because I've seen the worst covering stories and hurricanes for decades.

And I'll be okay.

And so we really represent the the brain power of most people out there.

Like, I'm the person who thinks as long as I follow all the rules, I'll be okay.

Not so, you know.

What advice do you give as hurricane season begins?

What is their advice for kind of navigating the season with their employees?

I think you take it seriously.

Um, one of the things we talked about is I'm, you know, second generation Floridian, Ashley's native.

Mike, you've been here for a long time.

Lisette.

Many of us have not taken hurricane season seriously.

So I think as an employer, because I run the crisis center, we had staff that were impacted.

I'm going to make sure that this hurricane season, when we talk about having your go bag ready, because again, we're we operate 24 over seven.

So staff have to literally come.

And they live at the crisis center during this time to not only make sure you've got your physical household and things ready to go.

But you've also got to think about how am I going to manage emotionally in the days afterwards, and how am I going to try to reduce some of that stress and anxiety?

So in addition to the flashlights and the water and those kinds of things, I'm also going to think about what are some things that I can do that will just allow me to escape.

And maybe that's that favorite book.

Maybe it's a crossword puzzle.

It's some coloring sheets.

It's something that doesn't take electricity, but things that I can do that I can just sit back in the moment, be able to, you know, you know, decompress, be able to disconnect so that I can kind of empty that anxiety and be ready to take the next step.

Because I think one of the things we all talked about is many folks who called us, they were so anxious they couldn't make a decision because there were so many things going on in their world, and they were paralyzed because they had too much going on in their head, because they hadn't tried to take a breath.

They hadn't stopped to process and just recognize that they had experienced a trauma.

You don't have to respond right this second.

It's okay to step back and take a breath and to disconnect from it so that you're ready to move forward.

My FEMA inspector, after we looked through the house, which was a disaster, he put his arm around me and said, I know you don't believe life will ever get back to normal, he said, but it will.

And he said, the reason I can say that with certainty is because his home was destroyed in Houston in the storms there, he said, my house was as bad as your house is right now.

And then he he rebuilt.

But he said it won't happen tomorrow or the week after or the week after, but life will get back to normal.

And I love hearing hearing you say that because there are so many stories on the opposite end where the, the, the FEMA person, the, the flood insurance person, I should say, or the person that represented the property.

Insurance was not kind and added to their stress.

This guy, this guy.

It's like it runs the gambit in terms of what happens.

And so how was your process?

What advice do you give our viewers in terms of like things that worked for you in the post storm?

Take pictures.

Of the.

Insurance pictures.

Pictures, pictures.

I mean, thank God for cell phones.

So I mean, I did videos, but I did pictures of everything.

I tried to make a list of what what we had that was, you know, expensive and that that should be covered by insurance.

You've got to document that and then save the bills.

FEMA, FEMA wanted all that, you know, because we, you know, we bought storage bins and and all of that.

So we saved the bills.

Take pictures.

Use your cell phone.

I mean, that is such a blessing.

15 years ago, people wouldn't have it.

They might have a VHS video.

For the camera that's now underwater.

That's right.

Yes, but.

The cell phones with you.

So.

So that I think that that is the most important thing.

Document, document, document.

When you brought that up.

Um, dealing with business interruption coverage.

If you have business interruption coverage in your business, you want to make sure that your panels are clean and ready to go, because that's going to be a part of their discovery.

Um, you're going to want to make sure that you have a Excel spreadsheet of all of your equipment, um, to where you have your purchase date, how much you purchased it for.

You may even add your depreciation if your accounting, your accountant will add that information.

Document.

Document.

Document.

Make sure you have your bills.

When we lost a 2016 Mercedes Metris cargo van and they were saying, oh well, give us a bill for the fabrication, for the partition and the powder coating and all the investments you made in the vehicle.

And I was thinking, wow, that was like seven years.

Like, how do I figure this out?

And because we have these spreadsheets that have.

The documentation.

Be prepared to protect your investments and try not to throw your hands up and give away your future choices out of frustration, which I heard from you, Miss Clara, is people will be so frustrated and just be so used to taking a lump or taking a loss that they don't stand up for themselves.

Take a beat, read a book, play a Sudoku, take a walk, calm yourself and provide the information you need so that your family can be taken care of.

That you paid the insurance.

It's on them to own up to their side of the deal.

And in January, when our business interruption checks started showing up, they really did help some of those things that we had to put on credit cards to make it through that fourth quarter.

When those business interruption checks started arriving in January, we were able to pay down those cards.

And so just be patient.

That's a big thing.

Documentation.

I have to add is before the storm.

If you have important papers, be sure to put them in a safe place like they wanted.

Our insurance policy, which was in a desk that had been overrun with water.

I picked it up.

You couldn't read anything.

So if you can, if you think a storm is coming, if you have important papers, put them in a safe place high up.

You're going.

To evacuate the.

Next time.

So evacuate.

Take the papers.

Take the documents.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories and also your advice.

I think that we are.

Our purpose in this show is to be a resource to our viewers.

And thanks to all of you, we've been able to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us.

[music] We'd like to once again remind you to download the Florida Storms app on your cell phone for updated information throughout the 2025 hurricane season.

Tune in to your local Florida Public Radio Emergency Network station for the latest information before, during, and after the Storm.

Next week on part two of our hurricane edition of Florida This Week, meteorologist Denis Phillips takes us behind the scenes of his weather center as he follows the storms.

We'll also visit a Seminole resident whose home was destroyed last year and what she's still dealing with at this point.

The Better Business Bureau has tips on what kind of dishonest schemes to watch out for when repairing your home.

And are skyrocketing property insurance rates going down any time soon?

We'll talk to an expert, and we'll hear how to keep your kids mentally calm, secure and protected during a busy hurricane season.

The show is on every Friday night at 8:30 and Sunday afternoon at 12:30, always online.

You can also watch past shows on YouTube.

Don't forget to friend us on Facebook from our entire team here at WEDU.

Have a great weekend!

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