You may see the National Hurricane Center daily maps showing the likely areas of development for tropical storms and wonder how long it takes the storm to get close enough to the Southeast to worry about. This excellent map from Ed Piotrowski shows the average number of days it takes for a storm to get from a location in the main development zone to get to the United States (if it ever does, since some recurve before they get close to land). So if you have a potential storm where the X is located, it will take an average of 10-12 days for it to get to the United States. That means you have plenty of time to watch it and to prepare before it gets close enough to start to consider evacuation or other more serious responses.

It also shows why storms that form in the Gulf are so dangerous, because you may only have a day or two before the storm makes landfall. If the Gulf water is really warm, even that short time can be enough for the storm to strengthen to hurricane status (like Hurricane Michael in 2018).