Body found as 155mph Hurricane Michael subsides

SEARCH-AND-RESCUE teams have found at least one body in Mexico Beach, the ground-zero town nearly obliterated by Hurricane Michael, an official has said.

The death toll across the South stood at 14 including the victim discovered in Mexico Beach.

Miami fire chief Joseph Zahralban, leader of a searchand-rescue unit that went into the flattened town, said: “We have one confirmed deceased and are working to determine if there are others.”

Zahralban said searchers were trying to determine if that person had been alone or was part of a family.

He spoke as his team – which included a dog – was winding down its two-day search of Mexico Beach, the town of about 1,000 people that was nearly wiped off the map when Michael blew ashore there on Wednesday with devastating 155mph winds.

Rows and rows of homes were demolished, reduced to splintered lumber or mere concrete slabs by the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental US in nearly 50 years.

As the catastrophic damage across the Florida Panhandle came into view 48 hours after the hurricane struck, there was little doubt the death toll would rise.

But authorities scrapped plans to set up a temporary morgue, suggesting they had yet to see mass casualties.

State officials said that by one count, 285 people in Mexico Beach defied mandatory evacuation orders and stayed behind. Some of them successfully rode out the storm. It was unclear how many of the others might have got out at the last minute.

Emergency officials said they have received thousands of calls asking about missing people.

But with mobile service out across vast swathes of the Florida Panhandle, officials said it is possible that some of those unaccounted for are safe and just have not been able to contact friends or family.

Across the ravaged region, meanwhile, authorities set up distribution centres to hand out food and water to victims.

Some supplies were brought in by trucks, while others had to be delivered by helicopter because of debris still blocking roads.

Residents began to come to grips with the destruction and face up to the uncertainty that lies ahead.

“I didn’t recognise nothing. Everything’s gone. I didn’t even know our road was our road,” said 25-year-old Tiffany Marie Plushnik, an evacuee who returned to find her home in Sandy Creek too damaged to live in.

When she went back to the hotel where she took shelter from the storm, she found out she could no longer stay there either because of mould.

“We’ve got to figure something out. We’re starting from scratch, all of us,” Plushnik said.

President Donald Trump announced plans to visit Florida and hard-hit Georgia next week.