ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The crashing waves on sunny St. Petersburg beaches sound like sighs of relief knowing Hurricane Dorian will remain far from Florida’s West coast. Most Floridians know Labor Day and hurricanes go hand and hand. 

  • Pinellas woman remembers 1985's Hurricane Elena while prepping for Dorian
  •  Vicki Nardozzi was featured in a Sept. 3, 1985 newspaper image of Hurricane Elena coverage
  • Hurricane Dorian latest

“I spend a lot of labor days waiting for a storm. it just seems to be the deal,” said Renée Mott, a longtime Florida resident. 

Mott and Tanji Shelton remember their Florida history well.

“It was destined for the recycle bins,” said Shelton, as she set three different Tampa Bay Times newspapers from 1985 on a table where she works. 

For Mott and Shelton, memories of one past hurricane can’t fade like the newspaper clippings. These papers document Hurricane Elena’s aftermath along Pinellas County’s coast. 

“Oh there it is, that is the one,” said Shelton, pulling the September 3rd 1985 paper to the top. This paper is exactly 34 years old.  

Vicki Nardozzi today outside her part-time home in North Carolina. (Image via Skype)

“This is what all of the beaches looked like,” said Shelton, pointing from one devastating picture to the next. “It literally sat out there and pounded it (the coast).”

“It never even came ashore,” said Vicki Nardozzi, another longtime Florida resident. “When it did come ashore it was far away, but it just, like Dorian is doing it’s just sitting there and spinning.”

Nardozzi was captured in an image printed in the 1985 paper as she came back from evacuating. A part-time resident in both Florida and now North Carolina, Nardozzi finds herself prepping for Dorian.

“So we had to hike in and I was making that hike carrying my friend’s bird, that we had been babysitting when this all happened,” said Nardozzi, with a smile.  “It’s always a hoot seeing yourself that long ago.”  

Each woman remembers where they were during that scary storm. 

“I was right underneath these windows here,” said Mott, as she took us back to the mobile home park on 66th street North where she lived. She was 23 at the time, and she knows she will never forget what Elena did to the area.  

“Looking at those pictures though on Facebook yesterday. What did that bring you back to? What was that like?” asks Spectrum Bay News Nine’s Erin Murray. 

“It was pretty terrifying,” said Mott.   

Elena was a Category 3 hurricane. All three women see similarities between Elena and Dorian. The only difference in their mind is Dorian is scraping up the East Coast. 

“Certainly for people that we know and love that are living anywhere in the path of the storm it is horrible to watch,” said Nardozzi. 

Images captured over Labor Day and over the next days of Dorian will surely top the newspapers in the days to come. They will be memories for East coast residents to look back on in the future.