After hitting the Big Bend in Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane, Tropical Storm Helene killed at least 30 people in four states, according to an Associated Press tally.

Thousands of residents were in deep water, dealing with damage, power outages and forced evacuations – including some Minnesotans.

Heather Forness moved eight years ago from south Minneapolis to Dunedin, which is a few miles north of Clearwater on Florida’s Gulf Coast. On Friday morning, she said her neighborhood was littered with branches and debris. Forness said she and her husband were fortunate to still have power in their home and helped their neighbors charge phones and other necessities.

As with all other hurricanes, the couple chose not to evacuate.

The combination of being away from work, packing up three dogs, the cost of lodging and travel, and the risk that the storm might strike while driving outweighed the risk of staying, Forness explained. She said she would rather be knocked over in her home than in her car on a highway.

And thanks to the fact that the couple did “some homework” before purchasing, the couple’s home sits much higher than many of their neighbors in Pinellas County. It’s also about three miles from the Gulf and another three miles from the bay, so rain-related local flooding is the biggest threat, not storm surge.

Forness said she felt far less anxious than she did in 2017, during her first storm since moving.

“It definitely becomes less scary as time goes on,” she said. “When Irma came, I was terrified. And now I’m just a little scared when the storms come. Less terror, more excitement.”

Unlike Forness, Cheryl Magnuson moved quickly.

Her Boca Ciega Bay home falls within a mandatory evacuation zone in western Pinellas County. She moved from Minnesota to Florida in the late 1980s and has experienced several major storms since then. But this time to be left behind in the path of the predicted 20-foot storm surge seemed unimaginable.

“I don’t like to see the water rise. I won’t do that. “There’s nothing worth this,” she told MPR News anchor Cathy Wurzer Thursday afternoon at her in-laws’ home in Tampa. “I have experienced many storms where we were not given an evacuation order. And it’s very interesting to look at them. But if anyone says it’s going to get that bad, I’m out of there. I won’t stay here.”

Kenzie Stein feels similarly after a traumatic experience earlier this year.

Stein moved from Minnesota to Panama City Beach last November. In January, a tornado struck the area, killing one person, injuring several others, and destroying some buildings. The National Weather Service concluded that an EF-3 twister touched down and traveled more than five miles over land and water.

“They don’t make sirens like we do in Minnesota. So there was no warning other than the buzzing on your phone, which is almost like an Amber Alert, and then it basically said there’s a tornado overhead,” she recalled Friday morning. “I just jumped into my bathroom. That’s all I had time for.”

Less than a month ago, she moved into an apartment complex in St. Petersburg, also in Pinellas County. At the beginning of Helene’s prediction, Stein asked for advice on Facebook and ultimately decided not to stick around and wait out the storm. She chose a hotel in Orlando, about two hours inland.

While she was packing her belongings to return home, the property management company informed her that power had been restored and that she should process any maintenance requests as quickly as possible.

“I’m kind of blind to what awaits me. I live in a first floor apartment, so we’ll see,” she told MPR. “But I removed most of the things from the floor. So if something floods – which is a nice thing when renting – the floors in the apartment complex will be. So I’m lucky in that regard too. It’s not my home.”

In New Tampa, northeast of Tampa in Hillsborough County, Olivia Lavin was prepared for the worst but woke up feeling lucky in her apartment complex.

“There was really no flooding, nothing like that. No trees fell. There were branches and leaves and things like that and big puddles, but no flooding,” she said Friday morning. “I just saw the videos on TikTok and Instagram of everyone else in Florida affected by these terrible floods. And that’s exactly what I expected.”

Originally from Maple Grove, Lavin moved to Florida two months ago to pursue his doctorate. With the best of caring intentions, friends and family back home worried and fueled their own fears, while their new neighbors remained almost eerily quiet.

“There wasn’t a big rush at Target and Publix and things like that. Instead, people just casually bought water and prepared to “spend the next few days,” she said. “So I decided to play with everyone here in Tampa and not in Minnesota.”

The hours of waiting for the storm to hit and the power to go out were mostly in vain as her lights stayed on and what reached her “was just some wind and rain.”

“I was lucky,” Lavin said.

MPR News producer Alanna Elder contributed to this story.