Anastasia Fox said she called her mom as soon as she heard about Hurricane Helene, asking if she could bring seven USF St. Pete students to their Lake Nona home in Orlando.

“My mom immediately said, ‘Of course we’re hosting everyone,’” said Anastasia Fox, a sophomore business management major. “That’s just how I’ve always been raised: to allow people into my home.”

Most of her friends are out-of-state and international students, so she knew she had to do something to help in case they had to evacuate residence halls, she said.

Student residents living in USF St. Pete received an email on Tuesday saying they had to evacuate the dorms by Wednesday because of Hurricane Helene.

Related: USF closes all campuses due to Tropical Storm Helene

Anastasia Fox said last year, with Hurricane Idalia, she was the last person on her floor to evacuate and was in the bands of the hurricane on her way to Orlando. 

This time, she figured out an escape plan before USF announced its closure.

“We started talking to each other and questioning ourselves about what we would do if classes were canceled,” she said. “Even if classes didn’t get canceled, we were all willing to skip our classes to safely get back to Orlando.”

Anastasia Fox said she and her seven friends left the St. Pete campus at 10 p.m. on Tuesday to hopefully miss the Disney World traffic. They arrived in Orlando around midnight, she said.

Only two cars would have been enough to bring the friends to Orlando, but she said she ended up having four cars in her driveway.

Anastasia Fox said her friend Vivian Howie, a sophomore biology major, brought her car because she is originally from Perry and wanted to make sure she could leave at any time if she had to go home to help clean up debris.

Another friend, Marley Paul, a sophomore health sciences major, is originally from Clermont and brought her car to visit her parents and return to Orlando to stay with her friends, Anastasia Fox said.

Gabriel Ramahlo, a sophomore finance major, is another friend who went to Anastasia Fox’s house in Orlando. ​​He said he had experienced a few hurricanes before because he is originally from Virginia, but none were “as bad” as Hurricane Helene.

Even though USF had a bus to send St. Pete students to Tampa, he said he was relieved when Anastasia Fox invited him because he didn’t necessarily want to sleep in USF’s “living arrangements.” 

Related: USF St. Pete residents found shelter in Tampa campus amid Hurricane Helene

Stacy Fox, Anastasia Fox’s mom, said she was excited to meet all her daughter’s friends from college.

As an empty nester, she said her nest was overflowing again.

She said she shopped for snacks, added a few more chairs to her family table for meals, and turned multiple rooms into bedrooms for the week to accommodate more beds and air mattresses.

More parents should host students at their homes during natural disasters because the experience will make their lives fuller, Stacy Fox said.

“It would be very hard for me to be away from my daughter during a Category 4 hurricane, so if I could do anything to assure other families that their students were safe, I would totally do so again,” she said.

Having a house full of students during the hurricane was loud, but Stacy Fox said she was surprised at how capable they were of caring for themselves and each other. 

Stacy Fox said her daughter sat with Howie, her friend from Perry, where Hurricane Helene made landfall, as she received news from her parents.

“When they came out, the friends decided to have a karaoke dance party to get Howie’s mind off of her pain,” she said. 

The friends threw pool parties, went out to the lake and had dinner outside together, Anastasia Fox said. 

Ramahlo said the friends focused on supporting each other during the storm because even though some had more experience with hurricanes, others weren’t as familiar.

The moments shared with his friends were amazing, and it felt “good” to be prepared for his first “bigger” hurricane, Ramahlo said.

“The lesson is just finding the balance between not thinking with your fear or emotion, but thinking about what the most logical next step is for your safety and the safety of the people you love,” Ramahlo said.