As the days stretch into months after Tampa Bay’s most destructive hurricane season in a century, the lonely slog of recovery has only just begun. Coping grows harder as the early hours of adrenaline fade into the purgatory of getting by. Housing is scarce. Endless paperwork bleeds into numbing hours on hold.

Tampa Bay – the nation's most vulnerable metro area to storm surge – could be about to see its worst flooding in over a century.