Don't put away hurricane supplies just yet. Is Idalia going to get a second crack at Florida?

Even if the effects turn out minimal in Southwest Florida, Hurricane Idalia has been temporarily good for some businesses.

Karen Morris, who operates a Sabrett Hot Dog cart, had a front row seat watching the parade of customers marching to the Cape Coral Lowe's Home Improvement on Pine Island Road.

“It’s busy ever since Saturday," said Morris, a northeast Cape resident who worked into the afternoon Monday. "I’ve been seeing generator after generator, gas can, that’s all I see."

Consumers may want to hang on to their stockpiles because Idalia may get a rare second shot at the region next week, as part of a historically unusual loop that could take it back south, according to meteorologist Josh Nagelberg of Perry Weather, which advises some of the world's largest companies, universities and sports franchises including Amazon, the PGA Tour, the Indianapolis Colts and Stanford.

"You can't take any hurricane lightly, but this one's got the chance of becoming yet another historic storm. There is a lot of uncertainty once we get on past" Wednesday, said Nagelberg, who posts regular YouTube updates and anticipates a Big Bend area landfall Wednesday morning possibly as a Category 4. "After that, there is weakening steering currents, which will allow the storm to stall and maybe even move back. (If) that happens, there is a window for it to strengthen again next week after Labor Day."

With Ian's Sept. 28 pummeling in one of the most damaging hurricanes ever, and now this, we're certainly in uncharted territory in this era of climate change, as Nagelburg says Gulf water temperatures, for example, are up to five degrees above average.

"This is crazy times we're in right now," Nagelberg said Tuesday, also noting powerful Hurricane Franklin off the state's Atlantic coast. "This is something very rare to see: Two hurricanes so close to each other and so close to Florida. We've seen multiple hurricanes on the map before at the same time, but if Idalia becomes a major hurricane tonight, and Franklin stays a major hurricane, it's going to be a very rare occurrence to see two major hurricanes in the same part of the basin at the same time. We are kind of in unprecedented times here, unfortunately,"

But Franklin might end up helpful in minimizing the damage from an Idalia U-turn.

"They're showing that loop very close to where Franklin is now. The good news is, if you want to call it good news, is that Franklin is such a big storm, a strong Category 4, that it's cooling off the waters," Nagelberg said, adding the challenge is Idalia continuing to move further south into the above normal hot ocean waters or back into the sizzling Gulf. "It certainly does have a better chance of trying to make a comeback."

A question is where Idalia might eventually re-enter the Peninsula and how much steam it has as it moves west across the state toward Southwest Florida or further north.

"The GFS has been leading the charge on this taking a clockwise loop," Nagelberg said Tuesday of the National Weather Service's forecast system. "Several ensembles take it right (back) towards the Bahamas. (There) are some solutions that take this back into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which is the last place we want to see anything at this point."

Whether with Idalia now or later and as its outer bands slapped Southwest Florida Tuesday, rain continued as a concern for locals like the Cape's Morris, uneasy about entering back into her neighborhood at Trafalgar Parkway and Skyline Boulevard in case of a massive rainstorm.

“Every entrance to it flooded in that last big storm, not a hurricane, but just a rainstorm we had a couple of weeks ago,” Morris said. “I had to wait an hour before I could get home because it was so deep.”

Governments across Southwest Florida worked to prevent those kinds of obstacles, such as the city of Naples, which like other community boards, had declared a local state of emergency.

Since the beginning of the week, personnel were "preparing city facilities and equipment, topping off fuel, clearing storm drains, lowering lake levels and securing loose items," city spokesperson Monique Barnhart said.

And while no forecaster was predicting a regional repeat of Hurricane Ian's devastating storm surge last year, some possible flooding in Southwest Florida stayed on the Idalia itinerary as its eye passed off the shore late Tuesday.

"We anticipate higher than normal high tides, which will affect storm surge predictions," Barnhart said. "Do not walk or drive into flood waters."

Dan Summers, the Collier director of emergency management, said Collier surge could end up 1 to 3 feet while other modeling puts it at 2 to 4 feet. That might mean fresh sand on the beaches that replaced Ian's damaged berms may wash away.

"The winds related to this storm that will drive any kind of on-shore or coastal flooding in our area will come after the eye has passed the entire coast," Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman said.

Tropical storm effects also were in play, with Collier winds of up to 39 mph, but not enough by Tuesday afternoon for plans there to open shelters or suggest evacuations, Summers said. "Safe Haven" centers opened due to Idalia by Lee County in Estero and North Fort Myers for the homeless or others in difficult housing situations continued to operate Tuesday afternoon. Hospital administrators were also sending reminders that their facilities are not shelters.

With Ian's destruction fresh in the memory of many residents, some weren't waiting for government officials to take the lead in their particular areas to make sure their citizens were safely housed under a roof during Tuesday's harsh storms. In the greater Pine Island area, where 90% of the homes and businesses sustained Ian-related damage, inhabitants headed to more stable housing while others picked up sandbags at the local fire station.

Tarps still cover roofs there. Some homes still need to be gutted. Residents are still living in trailers and RVs. Homes sunk into waterways and the debris of decimated colorful cottages are visual reminders of Ian’s strength and pain.  Many islanders are still in triage mode while others have made progress.

A few days ago, Diane Cammick returned to her 1947 salmon-colored cottage after making repairs from the damage caused by Ian. Storm surge had soaked her home. It felt great to be home after nearly a year.

The housewarming was short-lived.

On Tuesday she was packing up her little rescue dogs, Daisy, and Penny, and heading to a neighbor’s house where she felt they would all be safer. “I don’t want to take a chance, especially with animals.”

If Idalia damaged her home, she didn’t know what her future would like. “At 72, you just can’t keep doing this.”

Rachel Godbout, 42, had suitcases ready near her door. She was heading to a hotel in Fort Myers on Tuesday. Her roof was still covered by a tarp and the foundation needed to be fixed.

Homes on either side of hers sank during Ian. Somehow her home remained standing, but part of the ceiling had caved in last week. “I just don’t trust the house.”

Leaders with the Greater Pine Island Alliance, a long-term recovering group formed after Ian, shifted into hurricane preparedness mode as they made sure there was drinking water on hand and a command center in place while responding to calls for help with sandbags and tarping roofs.

“The unknowing is the absolute worst part of this,” said Erin Lollar-Lambert, the executive director of the alliance.  “The devastation we experienced 11 months and 1 day ago, that lingering effect, is not something that people can just ignore. It’s not something people can just get past … We’re at 11 months and 1 day. It feels like it was yesterday.”

As winds picked up and the sky darkened on Tuesday, there was a steady flow of islanders picking up sandbags from the fire station as volunteers filled and loaded sandbags.

Not again: After Hurricane Ian, Southwest Florida 'hyper-vigilant' as Idalia moves nearby in the Gulf

More than 4,000 sandbags had been given out in the past few days, said Ben Mickuleit, chief of the Matlacha/Pine Island Fire Control District. “People are still shell-shocked from Ian so they’re doing everything they can to prepare.”

Because of the wind, Lee County schools didn't conduct classes Tuesday and are closed for Wednesday. Despite Tuesday's tornado warnings, Collier largely kept its normal campus schedules except for cancelling or postponing all Tuesday night district events that had been scheduled after 6:30 including athletics "out of an abundance of caution due to predicted inclement weather in the evening."

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Some restaurants and other businesses also closed Tuesday, uncertain what Wednesday would bring. With the unknowns, other venues closed Tuesday due to Idalia's threat planned to keep doors shut again Wednesday including the CareerSource Southwest Florida Port Charlotte center. The Fort Myers operation hoped to resume Wednesday, said Amy Hanna-Eckenrode, an agency director.

Based at the Naples Daily News, Columnist Phil Fernandez (pfernandez@gannett.com) writes for the USA TODAY NETWORK, which supplemented this report through the efforts of Janine Zeitlin, Liz Freeman, Luis Zambrano, Bill Smith and Kendall LIttle. Support Democracy and subscribe to a newspaper.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: As SW Florida feels Idalia's effect, hurricane may come back next week