As the projected path of Hurricane Irma shifts to Southwest Florida, it threatens to hit the nation's most vulnerable target for storm surge: Tampa.
Tampa is especially prone to flooding because it is low lying with a big bay, and inlets that face the shallow, warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And just about every Gulf Coast community in Irma's track, from Everglades City to Sarasota, is also at high risk.
Tampa leaders are all too aware of this scary natural phenomenon.
"Storm surge is real. I think it's 'you run from the water and hide from the wind.''' Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandy Murman said at a briefing Saturday.
"Well, you better run from this water because if that storm surge hits 6 to 9 feet, I know I'm going to have 6 feet in my house."
By Sunday morning, the storm surge forecast grew more menacing. With Irma arriving as a dangerous Category 4 storm east of Key West, the National Hurricane Center projected storm surge as high as 10 to 15 feet along Southwest Florida's coast.
"If you're in an evacuation zone, you do not want to be there when the surge comes," NHC specialist Mike Brennan warned Gulf Coast residents. "You can lose your life. It's as simple as that."
The Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area _ Florida's second largest _ has been rated as the nation's most vulnerable region to a major storm surge with estimated property losses of $175 billion in the event of a 100-year hurricane, according to a Boston company that specializes in assessing the risk of catastrophes.
In Tampa, the 100-year hurricane would be a Category 4 storm with winds as high as 150 miles per hour. The last major hurricane to strike the Tampa Bay area _ a Category 4 with maximum winds of 140 miles per hour _ was in 1921.
"A severe storm with the right-track orientation will cause an enormous buildup of water that will become trapped in the bay and inundate large areas of Tampa and St. Petersburg," with 50 percent of their population living on ground elevations less than 10 feet, according to a 2015 report by Karen Clark & Company.
The company rated Fort Myers No. 5 in vulnerability with estimated losses of $70 billion, and Sarasota at No. 7 with losses estimated at $50 billion.
In comparison, Miami came in at No. 4 with estimated losses at $80 billion. Miami's coastal profile is less prone to storm surge than other areas because the continental shelf falls off steeply, the report said. But its potential property losses are still high because the city has some of Florida's most expensive real estate.
Irma, which earlier in the week was projected to strike South Florida, started shifting to a northwest track Friday toward Southwest Florida. Typically, in this region, storms travel east to west or southwest to northeast _ as Hurricane Charley did in 2004, when the Category 4 storm made landfall west of Fort Myers.
However, Irma's path appeared to be heading parallel to the Southwest coast from Naples to Tampa _ and that would cause the Gulf's shallow bays to bulge. The storm surge _ the difference between normal high tide and storm tide _ is predicted to range from 6 to 9 feet depending on the coastal area, the National Hurricane Center said.
Scientists and forecasters stress that surge impacts can vary widely depending on the intensity, speed, angle and landfall of a storm.
But one thing is clear: storm surge is deadly serious. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has identified storm surge as the most damaging aspect of a hurricane, because it destroys buildings and drowns people.
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(Charles Rabin contributed to this report.)
