TAMPA, Fla. – Evacuation zones have been updated in Hillsborough County and now, 75,000 people find themselves in one of these zones for the first time.

The largest new portion is in East Tampa.

We stopped by a local church in the neighborhood to see how people felt about being in an evacuation zone for the first time. 

“I fix the plates,” said Henritta Glover as she washed dishes. 

She’s lived in East Tampa for more than 30 years and for more than a decade, every Wednesday she makes food for the community.

“This is the heart in the hood of Tampa, right where we’re standing. We’re the church with a heart,” said New Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church’s Pastor Paul Buster.
While Henritta makes food inside, Paul organizes donations outside.

“We try our best to help the community and whoever we can help,” he said.

They know the neighborhood and hearing that they’re in an evacuation zone comes as a surprise.

“A lot of us won’t be able to jump in our cars and have transportation and go somewhere,” said Glover.

“We won’t want people to go hundreds of miles, we tell people to plan for tens of miles,” said Katya Miller with Hillsborough County Officer of Emergency Management.

Miller says the county is always working with regional planners to look at changes.

The zone maps don’t reflect a change in geography, but updates in census data and sea levels.

She says it’s important to remember these new maps and zones are worst-case scenario. However, if a storm was strong enough, people living in East Tampa would have a hard time getting out and emergency services would have a very difficult time coming in to help.

“You want to go somewhere that is not going to be in a storm surge area or an evacuation zone,” Miller said.

It might not be very far.

Miller says by checking the county’s Hurricane Evacuation Assessment Tool, you can see exactly where you are.

“So what this is allowing them to do is they would populate in here what address they want to look up,” she said.

It’ll also show how far you are from a safe gray zone.

As for Henritta, she knows she now has some extra things to think about.

“Where am I going to go safely and still in Tampa? Not up north, not somewhere outside of Hillsborough County area. Where am I going to go safely if I have to leave my home?” she asked.