The forecast arrival on Thursday of another hurricane seems like a recurring nightmare for residents of Florida's Big Bend and eastern Panhandle.

Helene is expected to be the fifth hurricane to smack this roughly 200 miles of mostly rural coast between Panama City and Cedar Key in just eight years. Only three hurricanes have arrived elsewhere along the rest of the state's more than 800 miles of coastline over that time span.

With the tourist hotspot of Destin to the west and Tampa to the south, the eastern Florida Panhandle forms an elbow at the Big Bend. 

Residents there are tired. They're stressed. They've worried as they've watched the weather, and many may have packed up and evacuated at least once. And yet, somehow they have to muster the strength this week to prepare homes and businesses, stock up on food and water and make possibly life-changing decisions about whether to stay or go . . . again.

"It's like everybody is in mass PTSD. Imagine thousands and thousands of people at the same time," says Mike McKinney, who lives with his wife Maggie in a home north of Panama City, about 75 miles west of Tallahassee. They rode out the howling winds of Category 5 Hurricane Michael in their bathroom with a friend in 2018 and emerged to find the smell of destruction and uprooted trees around their home.

After Hurricane Idalia ripped across Taylor County – about 60 miles south of Tallahassee – in 2023, the McKinneys passed through on a trip. As they saw the familiar storm damage, Maggie said her heart started racing.

"We saw the giant piles of debris, and I thought 'Oh my God,' " she said. "This pulls me right back to Hurricane Michael. The blood pressure kind of rises and and you feel that pit in your stomach."

Janalea England, who lives in Steinhatchee in Taylor County, knows the feeling. She finds it almost unbelievable that her rural Florida County is in the potential path of its third hurricane in 13 months.

Category 3 Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach in August 2023 with a storm surge of up to 12 feet and wind gusts over 80 mph. The surge of water flooded homes and businesses in the region, causing significant damage in some cases, the National Hurricane Center reported. Just 11 months later, Taylor County was hit again when Hurricane Debby moved ashore near Steinhatchee on August 5, causing 3 to 5 feet of storm surge. Two people in the area died as a result of falling trees and two others were killed in car crashes. Both storms brought flooding rain.

Now, a little more than seven weeks later, the area is in the crosshairs of another major hurricane. Helene is forecast to make landfall somewhere along the Big Bend Thursday with winds as high as 125 mph, up to 12 inches of rain and a storm surge that could reach 15 feet high, depending on whether landfall coincides with high tide.

"A part of me is like it's not coming here," said England, whose family owns the Steinhatchee Fish Market. Part of her wants to "believe 100%" that it's going to turn. But practicality ruled this week as she and her husband worked to check for loose boards on their home and business and any potential trouble spots on the home's roof.

"It very well could be us again, and this time it's looking like a worse one and that's what's scaring me," she said. She checked in on vulnerable friends and family, other businesses closer to the Gulf of Mexico, including some that haven't yet fully recovered from Idalia, and wrestled with the evacuation question.

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The hurricane center has seen decades of improvement in track forecasting, but its margin of error at 72 hours out is roughly 100 miles. That means Helene could still wind up well east or west of its projected landfall location south of Tallahassee. That uncertainty makes it hard for some to decide whether to evacuate or not.

In her home near Tallahassee on Tuesday, Julie Hauserman put off the preparation tasks before her, posting on Facebook: "Honestly paralyzed with hurricane prep fatigue right now."

"Everybody I talk to feels that way," said Hauserman, long-time Florida journalist and author. "We're weary, we're just storm weary. You're doing the same thing over and over and over."

Hauserman and the McKinneys look around them at damaged timberland and blue tarps on roofs and question why fates have shifted along this coastline that seemed sheltered from destructive hurricanes for decades.

"This is getting more and more frequent," Maggie McKinney said, and storms like Michael are rapidly intensifying more often as they approach the coast.

"Temperatures in the Gulf are absolutely sky high and it's fueling these storms," Hauserman said.

Many scientists agree, saying the warmer-than-normal Gulf pumps more rain into hurricanes and makes some of them more intense. Meteorologists said record warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are likely to help Helene intensify as it moves northward in the Gulf.

"The fact that the storms are so intense when they make landfall because they have rapidly intensified in the Gulf of Mexico almost certainly has a climate-change contribution to it," said Jim Kossin, anatmosphericscientist and science advisor at the nonprofit First Street Foundation. "The remarkably warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico are a big contributor and climate change has contributed to those."

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No matter where Helene eventually makes landfall, much of Florida could feel the impacts if the storm does become the monster size called for in the official forecast. Storm surge is forecast along almost the entire length of the state's west coast. Even those who live well inland and away from the center of the storm may feel the impacts, Jamie Rhome, the hurricane center's deputy director, said this week.

The McKinneys, who were at a family reunion in Palm Coast on Florida's east coast this week, planned to leave a day early Wednesday to drive home. Not only do they want to stay in their home during the storm, they also wanted to avoid the path of destruction that could occur to the east if Helene stays on its forecast track or veers east.

These storms are "devastating" some of Florida's most rural counties, McKinney said.

Economic losses across North Florida after Idalia were estimated at more than $1 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's disaster data. Losses after Michael were estimated at $30 billion.

While many Florida communities still bear evidence of previous storms, it seems like the impacts last longer in the rural counties along the eastern Panhandle and Big Bend, Hauserman said.

In Steinhatchee, tensions felt high when England and her husband walked into a local restaurant for lunch Monday, she said. The community is "just getting recovered from Idalia," she said. Two friends along that stretch of coast told her: "If we get hit again, we're done."

As concerned as she is about her own community's slow recovery, England is even more concerned about Cedar Key, a historic fishing community 40 miles to the south.

"Lord have mercy," England exclaimed. The rural archipelago also suffered flooding and damage from Idalia and Debby. Then last week, a fire damaged four businesses along the town's Dock Street, the city said. On Tuesday, the city posted evacuation warnings and photos of residents prepping sandbags.

Some Cedar Key restaurants and small businesses still suffer from previous storms, England said. "Now you've got this thing? I could see someone could wash their hands."

Hauserman slowly packed a box on her porch Tuesday, loading it with mobiles, knickknacks and plants. She and other friends plan to ride out the storm at her partner's home in Tallahassee with their pets, hoping the power will either stay on or be restored quickly.

"I live on a road with a tree canopy," she said. "If a squirrel sneezes we lose power."

"You're supposed to have all your things ready," she said. "But what does that even mean any more? We're just tired, that's what we are."

Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate change and the environment for USA TODAY. She's been writing about hurricanes, tornadoes and violent weather for more than 30 years. Reach her at [email protected] or @dinahvp.