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... Helene, which has killed more than a hundred people across the South, was the third hurricane to hit the county in roughly the past 13 months. It followed Debby in August and Idalia about a year earlier. Forecasters aren't sure why the area's storm activity has surged, but they point to a couple of potential culprits: Hot oceans and La Nia.

The perils of Taylor County highlight a stark reality for residents of Florida's coastal communities: There is no safe place. Climate change is altering the way storms behave, threatening regions that were once shielded from the worst effects of extreme weather. As more people move to the US South, lured by the region's economic growth and relatively low cost of living, the risk of catastrophic losses from natural disasters is rising.

From 1900 to 2023, only two hurricanes struck Taylor County -- a rural corner of Florida's Big Bend region, where the Panhandle meets the rest of the peninsula -- and none of them were Category 3 or higher on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. That was the least activity anywhere along the entire shoreline from Florida's southern tip to Brownsville, Texas, according to National Hurricane Center records.

While it's not clear which atmospheric conditions have been directing more storms into western Florida in recent years, the Gulf of Mexico has gotten warmer, providing fuel for tropical systems. ...