Hurricane Debby hit Florida’s Big Bend area, south of Tallahassee and west of Gainesville, in early August. The storm left Cedar Key, a cluster of small barrier islands, badly battered and flooded, with beach houses severely damaged and at least one R.V. park submerged.

An organizing cluster of storms over the western Caribbean east of Central America is expected to gradually develop into a named storm over the next day or two and could quickly strengthen into a formidable hurricane as it accelerates toward the northeastern Gulf Coast – including parts of the Florida panhandle and Big Bend – by late Thursday into early Friday.