Hurricane Evacuation Zones — St. Petersburg, Florida

St. Petersburg occupies the southern end of the Pinellas Peninsula, bounded by Tampa Bay to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the west, and Boca Ciega Bay and associated intracoastal waters to the south and southwest, according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. That geography places virtually the entire city within Pinellas County's hurricane evacuation zone system — a layered framework of five zones, A through E, built around modeled storm surge inundation rather than FEMA flood insurance maps.

The practical stakes of zone designations became clear in the fall of 2024, when Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 26, 2024, driving more than 6 feet of storm surge into parts of St. Petersburg, and Hurricane Milton followed less than two weeks later with sustained winds of 83 mph and a peak gust of 101 mph recorded at Albert Whitted Airport, according to City of St. Petersburg official storm updates. Both storms triggered mandatory evacuation orders covering Zones A, B, and C. The City of St. Petersburg Emergency Management office (727-892-5200) coordinates local evacuation operations in partnership with Pinellas County Emergency Management, which sets the zone boundaries and issues countywide evacuation orders.

Pinellas County designates evacuation zones based solely on storm surge risk, not on whether a property lies within a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area. The Pinellas County Flood Map Service Center documents five zones — A through E — plus a non-evacuation zone designation for areas at the lowest modeled surge risk. Zone A represents the highest storm surge exposure, encompassing properties nearest tidal waters: bayfront neighborhoods, beach and barrier island communities, and low-lying areas such as Shore Acres northeast of downtown St. Petersburg. Zone E represents the lowest risk tier among properties that carry any evacuation designation.

The Pinellas County Emergency Management evacuation page specifies that residents of mobile homes are required to evacuate regardless of zone when any evacuation order is issued — a policy reflecting the structural vulnerability of manufactured housing to wind and surge. The county's guidance also notes that evacuation does not necessarily mean going to a public shelter; hotels outside the evacuation zone are a documented alternative. Zone boundaries are set at the county level and apply uniformly across all incorporated municipalities within Pinellas County, including St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and the unincorporated areas.

A critical structural feature of the evacuation zone system is that it is distinct from, and should not be conflated with, FEMA flood zone designations used for insurance purposes. A property may lie within a FEMA Zone X (minimal flood insurance risk) while still carrying a Zone A or B evacuation designation because storm surge models account for coastal inundation dynamics that differ from the 100-year riverine or pluvial flood scenarios underpinning FEMA maps.

Pinellas County operates Know Your Zone (kyz.pinellas.gov), an interactive address-based tool that returns the evacuation zone designation for any property in the county. The City of St. Petersburg maintains a parallel resource called the Prepare, St. Pete interactive map, accessible through the City's Hurricane Center webpage, which also supports evacuation zone lookups. Both tools use the same underlying Pinellas County zone data.

For visualizing potential inundation depth, Pinellas County GIS operates the Storm Surge Visualization application (egis.pinellas.gov/apps/StormSurgeProtector), which allows property-level queries showing modeled surge depth by evacuation scenario. During Hurricane Milton, the City of St. Petersburg reported a forecast of 10 to 15 feet of storm surge for the area, according to City Update #3 issued October 7, 2024 — a figure that underscores the relevance of surge-depth modeling tools.

Emergency notifications are distributed through the Alert Pinellas system, a countywide platform documented by both Pinellas County Emergency Management and the City's Hurricane Center. The county also makes the Ready Pinellas app available for mobile access to emergency information. WUSF Public Media, which operates as part of the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network, reported in April 2025 that shelter locations used in past storms may not be currently active, and that residents should consult current-season official resources rather than assuming prior shelter sites remain open.

During Hurricane Milton in October 2024, the City of St. Petersburg designated three general-population shelters: Gibbs High School (850 34th St. S), Melrose Elementary School (1752 13th Ave. S), and Campbell Park Elementary School (1051 7th Ave. S), according to City Update #4 issued during the Milton response. Gibbs High School was also designated as a pet-friendly shelter, as noted in City Update #3. The WUSF guidance published April 2025 cautions that shelter designations change from storm to storm and that past locations should not be assumed to be currently operational.

For residents with medical or functional needs who cannot self-evacuate, the City of St. Petersburg operates the Evacuation Assistance Program, reachable at 727-551-3822, which arranges transportation to general or special needs shelters, as listed on the City's Hurricane Center page. The designated special needs shelter is John Hopkins Middle School, located at 701 16th St. S., St. Petersburg. Pinellas County separately documents a Special Needs Evacuation Program through Pinellas County Emergency Management. Both programs serve residents whose medical equipment, mobility limitations, or other circumstances require structured transportation and shelter support during a storm event.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season produced two landfalling storms that directly tested St. Petersburg's evacuation zone system within a two-week period. Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 26, 2024; Pinellas County issued a mandatory evacuation order for Zone A and all mobile homes countywide, effective 9 a.m. on September 25, 2024, according to City Update #6 from that event. Helene drove more than 6 feet of storm surge into parts of St. Petersburg, with the Shore Acres neighborhood among the most severely flooded areas, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times on September 27, 2024.

The surge from Helene damaged control panels at eight wastewater lift stations and resulted in the discharge of nearly 1.5 million gallons of untreated wastewater, according to Florida Specifier's environmental assessment of the two storms. Hurricane Milton, which followed on October 9–10, 2024, prompted the City to extend mandatory evacuation orders to Zones A, B, and C and all mobile homes, per City Update #3 issued October 7, 2024. Milton produced sustained winds of 83 mph and a peak gust of 101 mph at Albert Whitted Airport, along with approximately 18 inches of rain in parts of St. Petersburg, according to City Update #10. Milton additionally caused power loss at all wastewater lift stations across the city, per Florida Specifier.

The combined debris removal effort following Hurricanes Helene and Milton totaled 2.1 million cubic yards — characterized by the City of St. Petersburg as the largest volume ever collected in the city's history, per the City's Helene and Milton Recovery page. Recovery coordination involved FEMA, the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), and Pinellas County, with the City convening permitting meetings related to the 49 percent rule — a regulatory threshold that determines whether storm-damaged structures require full code-compliant reconstruction.

As reported in Mayor Ken Welch's 2026 State of the City address, the City issued 15,635 Post Disaster Emergency Permits and provided $3.03 million in fee relief to support property owners rebuilding after the two storms. The Tampa Bay Times documented a $160 million storm recovery program that was subsequently subject to delays tied to a federal government shutdown. These recovery figures document the fiscal and administrative scale of storm response for a city situated almost entirely within an active evacuation zone system.

The Pinellas Peninsula's shape is a defining structural factor in St. Petersburg's hurricane evacuation planning. All land-based evacuation routes from the peninsula exit northward, creating a geographic chokepoint that Pinellas County Emergency Management accounts for in its contra-flow and traffic management planning. The peninsula's low-lying coastal topography — with significant areas at or near sea level along Tampa Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and Boca Ciega Bay — produces the conditions that the county's Zone A and Zone B designations are designed to reflect.

St. Petersburg, with an ACS 2023-estimated population of 260,646, is the largest city on the peninsula and the second-largest in the Tampa Bay Area. Its 141,039 total housing units — spread across bayfront, midtown, beach-adjacent, and inland neighborhoods — span multiple evacuation zone tiers. The Shore Acres neighborhood, a low-lying area northeast of downtown, sits within the highest-risk tier and demonstrated that exposure concretely during Helene's surge event in September 2024. Neighboring jurisdictions including Clearwater to the north and the unincorporated barrier island communities to the west operate under the same Pinellas County zone framework, meaning evacuation orders and shelter activations are coordinated at the county level rather than municipality by municipality. The City of St. Petersburg Hurricane Center and the Pinellas County Emergency Management page are the authoritative sources for zone maps, shelter activation status, and evacuation orders as each storm season progresses.