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Waiting for a storm, looking like a ghost town

 
Very low tide on Coffee Pot Bayou. (Adam C. Smith  |  Times)
Very low tide on Coffee Pot Bayou. (Adam C. Smith | Times)
Published Sept. 10, 2017

ST. PETERSBURG — As the anxious wait continued Sunday for Hurricane Irma, neighborhoods across St. Petersburg became damp, gray ghost towns with virtually nobody outside and few cars other than police vehicles moving on normally busy arteries.

Mobile home parks across the city were desolate, other than cops looking for elusive stragglers who may have ignored evacuation orders.

Even in flood-prone areas such as Shore Acres in northeast St. Petersburg, most homes were not boarded up. Among the boarded windows, some residents spray-painted messages of hope and defiance.

LIVE BLOG: Latest updates on Hurricane Irma.

"Psalms 139: 13-, 14," said one message in the desolate Pinellas Point neighborhood.

The Meaning? For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

A different tone on one Shore Acres home: "GO HOME IRMA, You're drunk"

COMPLETE COVERAGE:Find all our coverage about Hurricane Irma here

In the Patrician Point neighborhood off 40th Avenue NE, one homeowner who did board up his windows estimated he was among roughly 10 residents out of 50 on his Zone A street who opted to ignore the evacuation order and ride out Irma at home.

"I was born and raised here," the man, who declined to give his name, said when asked why he would risk staying.

Native status won't protect him, a reporter observed.

"Well, I'm a veteran. I've been shot at and survived so..."