If you live near or around sea level, especially in the Tampa Bay area, you can not survive the forecasted storm surge by accident. This is not a joke. I know you may have lived in Florida your whole life and been through dozens of hurricanes, but it only takes one you aren’t prepared for. As a result of having narrowly avoided multiple severe hurricane impacts over the past 100 years, the Tampa Bay area has been built up with little consideration for the fact that it eventually would be hit. The only regional trauma center is at sea level and on an island.
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Do not play with your life.
Also do not accidentally dox yourself on this post
Also, don't assume that since projections are that the hurricane will degrade from a Cat 5 to a potential Cat 2 means that the damage won't be catastrophic still. When these storms slow down they also spread out and the storm surge increases considerably. This area is already saturated from the previous storm and rains, the capacity to handle another large storm surge has been greatly diminished.
For the same reasons, plenty of debris is already on the ground from the last storm, so wind blown debris will be a bigger threat since the cleanup process is still underway
I'm not sure if the Tampa area is also dealing with this, but over where I live, it's going to rain for 4 days in a row before the hurricane lands.
From talking to folks I know in NC they said the same thing, they had almost a week of constant rain that on it’s own would have been historic.