NORTH PORT, Fla. (WFLA) — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual forecast for the 2024 hurricane season on Thursday, predicting a very active season is in store for the tropical Atlantic.

This comes over a year and a half after Hurricane Ian battered Florida’s west coast.

Some businesses are still recovering, and one North Port woman told News Channel 8 she has to move her family to Tennessee because of how hard Ian hit them.

To them, this new hurricane forecast is anything but good news.

Laurie Hardesty peeked out of her window in 2022 to see Hurricane Ian ripping through North Port.

“For five days, we had to stay in our home,” she said. “No electricity, no phone service, nothing.”

“We couldn’t do anything, get ahold of our family members to tell them we’re okay,” she said.

Hardesty said she and her family had to drive north of Tampa just to get a hotel room to have access to electricity.

“We were in shock,” she said. “There were no street signs. There were RVs turned sideways, trees completely uprooted, [and] bridges that collapsed.”

The whistling of the wind with a torrential downpour is a sound Floridians know all too well.

The scene was devastating after Hurricane Ian hit Tarpon Point Grill and Marina on the Myakka River.

Brand new tiki huts were washed away, and what was once a glass-enclosed patio became open to the elements.

“A lot of water,” said Michael Loy, the business’ general manager. “You had to come down the hill to even get in the parking lot.”

“The sign was destroyed, of course, and that was the biggest thing,” he said. “I remember seeing the metal bent in half basically.”

As Loy says his business is still recovering from Hurricane Ian over a year and a half later, NOAA is announcing its hurricane season forecast for 2024.

Those numbers are the highest NOAA has ever forecasted.

The agency expects between 17 and 25 named storms.

They also predict between eight and 13 hurricanes with four to seven of them being between Category 3 to Category 5.

“So all the ingredients are definitely in place to have an active season,” National Weather Service Director Kenneth Graham said. “It’s reason to be concerned of course, but not alarmed.”

“Now is the time to prepare and stay prepared,” NOAA Director Richard Spinrad said. “Remember it only takes one storm to devastate a community.”

Hurricane season officially starts June 1 and runs through the end of November.