Hurricane Irma in Tampa (2017) — Tampa, Florida

Hurricane Irma reached the Tampa area on the night of September 10, 2017, after a week in which forecasts had shifted the storm from Miami toward Tampa Bay. On September 9, WUSF reported that Tampa had not been struck by a major hurricane since 1921, when the city held about 10,000 people, according to a National Hurricane Center spokesman. That gap of nearly a century shaped how seriously the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County treated the approaching storm.

The center never crossed the bay. Bay News 9 reported that Irma made landfall farther south than forecasted, at Marco Island at 3:35 p.m. on September 10 as a Category 3 hurricane with 130 mph winds, and that this kept the major hurricane force winds south of the Tampa Bay region. The storm then tracked north across the interior, passing east of downtown Tampa overnight with weakening winds.

For Tampa, the event is remembered for three things: the emptied floor of Hillsborough Bay along Bayshore Boulevard on the afternoon of September 10, power outages that left hundreds of thousands of Tampa Electric customers in the dark, and a debris cleanup that the City of Tampa later measured at 175,000 cubic yards. Mayor Bob Buckhorn summed up the night on September 11 as a glancing blow rather than the direct hit the city had braced for.

The official watches and warnings trace the storm's approach. National Hurricane Center advisory 40, issued at 11 p.m. on Friday, September 8, 2017, extended the Storm Surge Warning on the west coast of Florida north to the Anclote River, including Tampa Bay, while Irma was making landfall in Cuba's Camaguey Archipelago as a Category 5 hurricane.

By 11 a.m. on Sunday, September 10, advisory 46 forecast 5 to 8 feet of surge above ground for the coast from Anna Maria Island to Clearwater Beach, including Tampa Bay, if the peak arrived at high tide. A day earlier, on the afternoon of September 9, the City of Tampa had warned that potential surge in coastal and low-lying areas of the city had increased to 6 to 9 feet, according to WUSF.

After the Marco Island landfall, the center moved north over land. At 11 p.m. on September 10, advisory 48 placed it about 50 miles southeast of Tampa with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph. Six hours later, at 5 a.m. on Monday, September 11, advisory 49 located the center about 60 miles north of Tampa, with winds down to 75 mph. The track kept the center inland and east of Hillsborough Bay through the night.

The threat to the bay was formally lifted that afternoon. Advisory 51, issued at 5 p.m. on September 11 as Irma moved over southwestern Georgia, discontinued the Storm Surge Warning from Clearwater Beach southward, including Tampa Bay. By then the water that had drained from Hillsborough Bay the previous afternoon had returned at well below the forecast heights.

On Sunday, September 10, the water in Hillsborough Bay pulled back from the Bayshore Boulevard seawall, a scene that WUSF described as a kind of reverse storm surge. Because Irma was approaching from the south and its winds rotated counterclockwise, the northwest side of the storm blew water from the Tampa Bay area out toward the Gulf. WUSF reported that water levels in Tampa Bay dropped as much as six feet.

The exposed bottom drew crowds. WUSF reported on the evening of September 10 that the hurricane pushed about 3 to 4 feet of water out of the bay and exposed mud flats and sea grass beds along Bayshore. A September 18 report carried by the USF Water Atlas put the drop in Tampa at five feet below normal and described spectators walking out to see beaches sucked dry.

The same report explained the geometry. Irma veered inland right before it got to Naples, taking its strongest eastern wall away from open water, so the winds at the head of the storm were moving west as it tracked north toward Tampa Bay, pulling water away from the shoreline instead of piling it against Tampa's waterfront.

Tampa police, expecting the water to return as a surge, ordered people off the bare seabed. A Bay News 9 meteorologist told WUSF that the water would not rush back while the wind stayed offshore, and that when the wind shifted the bay refilled to between about 1 and 4 feet above tide level depending on location, which for most of the Tampa Bay shoreline amounted to a nuisance.

Scientists at the USF College of Marine Science later analyzed the event with the Tampa Bay Coastal Ocean Model. Their 2018 paper reports that both observations and model simulations show a rapid negative storm surge followed by a positive surge as the wind direction changed, and that a large portion of Tampa Bay water was flushed out to the south and replaced by water carried in from along the coast to the north.

Evacuation orders came on September 9. According to WUSF, officials in Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa, along with Pinellas, Hernando, Sarasota and Manatee counties, ordered mandatory evacuation of all residents in Zone A, the low-lying coastal areas most exposed to surge, as well as residents with special needs and those living in mobile homes.

Hillsborough County shelters filled quickly. County officials said on the night of September 9 that more than 17,000 people had taken refuge in 45 shelters, 16 of them at capacity. Bay News 9 later reported that about 29,000 people had evacuated in the county.

Transportation shut down ahead of the wind. A WUSF closure list of September 10 reported that Tampa International Airport shut down operations at 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 9, that Port Tampa Bay was closed, and that Tampa had suspended city bus service. Busch Gardens and the Florida Aquarium were closed, all campuses of the University of South Florida were closed through Tuesday, and the University of Tampa was closed through Monday. At 4:50 p.m. on September 10, Bay News 9 reported that all westbound lanes of the Gandy Bridge and the Courtney Campbell Causeway were being closed.

Tampa Electric planned for a severe blow. On September 9, WUSF reported that the utility was preparing for outages affecting 300,000 to 500,000 customers, 45 to 70 percent of its system, and that substations in downtown Tampa and on Harbour Island and Davis Islands were the most likely to be affected if surge and saltwater threatened them.

The outages arrived overnight. WUSF reported nearly 266,000 Hillsborough County customers without power at noon on September 11, and Bay News 9 reported that at 9 p.m. that Monday, 315,482 TECO customers were without power across Hillsborough, East Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties. By 11 p.m. the same day, Tampa Electric had restored power to 90,000 customers.

Physical damage in Hillsborough County was concentrated in trees, power lines and inland water. Bay News 9 reported that county officials counted a dozen homes destroyed on the east side of the county, and WUSF reported that flooding was expected on four Hillsborough County rivers on September 11: the Hillsborough River, Cypress Creek, the Little Manatee River and the Alafia River. Tampa lifted its curfew that day.

Speaking on the morning of September 11, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said, as quoted by WUSF, that what the city thought was going to be a punch in the face was a glancing blow, while noting a lot of downed power lines and debris and predicting that some sections of Tampa would be without power for at least a couple more days.

Schools and campuses reopened within the week. Bay News 9 reported on September 11 that Hillsborough County public schools would reopen on Thursday, September 14, and that USF Tampa classes would resume the same day. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay stayed closed on Tuesday, September 12, for final debris cleanup.

Debris removal took longer. According to WUSF, storm debris collection in Tampa began on September 14 and was scheduled to continue through Friday, October 13, 2017, with residents asked to separate white goods, construction material and vegetation at the curb. The McKay Bay Disposal Facility accepted storm debris during that period. FOX 13 reported on September 19 that Hillsborough County's contracted crews were starting in the hardest hit areas.

The final figure became a benchmark. In an October 16, 2024 update on cleanup after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the City of Tampa noted that back in 2017 a total of 175,000 cubic yards of debris was collected after Hurricane Irma, against an estimated 1,000,000 cubic yards from the two 2024 storms.