PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Boaters in Pinellas County are preparing for Hurricane Helene by moving their vessels into the Gulfport Municipal Marina to keep them safe.
"What are the possibilities and what's going to happen? And we don't know the answers until it comes," said Kaylee Walker.
Walker knows how quickly calm waters can become dangerous.
"Just fear because of how close we were to losing our lives, so now it's kind of like, knowing it's going to be worse than Debby is kind of scary," said Walker.
ABC Action News spoke to Walker after she lost her boat to Tropical Storm Debby.
Now, with Hurricane Helene making its way towards Florida's coast, she's not taking any chances with her new boat.
"We don't want to be anywhere near it and we don't want to risk any of that stuff going on," said Walker.
She's one of many boaters who experienced how quickly a storm can become dangerous.
"Just watching the boats fly by on the beach, the waves were coming up over the bow and washing over the boat. We got flooded out, we lost power," said another boater, James Neumann.
The Gulfport Municipal Marina is ordering mandatory evacuations of Gulfport's mooring field.
"It's only as strong as what it is tied off with…and if another boat breaks free and we're to hit that boat and that boat gets submerged, a submerged boat that's still tied off doesn't mean much when it comes to security," said Sam Henderson, Gulfport Mayor.
"We've made slips available within the marina, that they can come in the marina and wait out the storm," said Denis Frain, marina director.
"We're in a safe space. We are going to evacuate and leave our boat here. We've done all we can to protect it," said Neumann.
Local leaders said when it comes to these kinds of storms, it's important to tie up your boat in a marina rather than leaving it out on the water just in case there's high storm surge.
Gulfport Police are telling people to move their boats to safer locations after Tropical Storm Debby left several boats beached.
The city is still working to remove 14 of those vessels nearly two months later.
Right now, Police said roughly 50 boaters live on the water in Gulfport and at least three have decided to ride out the storm on the water.
"We're hoping the PSA's that have been out will have an effective result," said Thomas Woodman with Gulfport Police Department.
Neumann said despite his concerns with Hurricane Helene, he's holding out hope.
"I hope to get on my boat on Friday morning, and just stroll back out there onto my mooring ball and get back out there and do what I do," he said.
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
