A trail of destruction in Florida panhandle
Death toll at 6, more expected; Mexico Beach hit hardest.
Search-and-rescue teams rushed Thursday to reach communities that Hurricane Michael leveled.
MEXICO BEACH, FLA. — Search-and-rescue teams rushed Thursday to reach communities that Hurricane Michael leveled, hoping to find survivors of the powerful storm after its rampage through the Florida Panhandle and beyond left buildings collapsed and splintered, hospitals damaged, roads and water systems compromised and more than 1 million homes and businesses without electricity.
Although it was clear by afternoon that the storm had caused widespread damage, some areas remained largely cut off, and authorities were trying to deploy rescuers by helicopter and boat. At least six people were killed, and with the death toll expected to rise, the Panhandle and counties to the north were a vast, staggered disaster zone.
“This is a very dense part of the state, so it’s going to be a lot of work to get to everybody,” Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said. “But we will get to everybody.”
At least four deaths were linked to the storm in Gads- den County, west of Tallahas- see, according to Lt. Anglie Hightower, a spokeswoman for the sheriff ’s office. The victims included a man who died when a tree crashed down on his home in Greensboro.
An 11-year-old girl, Sarah Radney, was killed Wednesday when a carport was torn away and was sent hurtling into the modular home she was in, said Chad Smith, the coroner of Seminole County, Georgia. “She was sitting right next to her grandmother,” said Smith, who described the girl’s death as a “horrible accident.”
A man died when a tree fell on his car as he was driving near Charlotte, North Carolina, just before 1 p.m. Thursday, said the Iredell County fire marshal, David Souther.
Emergency officials rushed to evacuate more than 300 patients from storm-damaged hospitals in Panama City. In total, four hospitals and 11 nursing facilities were closed in Florida. A nursing facility in Georgia was also closed.
Much of the coast of the Florida Panhandle, including parts of Panama City and Mexico Beach, was left in ruins. The area is dotted with small, rural communi- ties, some of them among the poorest in the state. Evacuation was difficult.
At 2 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, Michael was about 25 miles south of Greens- boro, North Carolina, head- ing northeast with sustained wind speeds of up to 50 mph. Now a tropical storm, it is moving relatively quickly, at 23 mph, and is expected to speed up as it crosses the Carolinas and blows out to sea by early Friday.
More than 1.1 million homes and businesses were without electricity Thursday, state agencies and utility companies said.
“The big problem with this hurricane was the tremendous power,” President Donald Trump said Thurs- day, adding that “we’ve not seen destruction like that for a long time.”
Michael took the nation by surprise, intensifying rapidly from a tropical storm to a major hurricane in just two days and leaving little time for preparations.
Ted Carranza could only watch with horror and wonder as Hurricane Michael lifted the houses all around him in the small town of Mexico Beach, Florida, then spun them around and dropped them.
“It was insane,” Carranza said Thursday from the town where the storm had crossed onto land a day earlier. It was a city in ruin. All around him, in places where there were once houses, now there were mere piles of lumber, junked home furnishings, mangled roofing, fishing rods, ceil- ing fans, sheets, clothing, bottles.
“These were all block and stucco houses — gone,” said Tom Bailey, 66, a former mayor of the city, gesturing to a flat beachside plain riddled with junk piles and a few bent trees.
The roads became passable into town Thursday, and it became evident that few communities had suffered more. Known for its sport fishing, the city of about 2,000 permanent residents swells to as many as 14,000 in July, and is known for having a relaxed, small-town feel compared to the brash tourist strips of Panama City Beach or the tony nearby beach developments like Alys Beach or Seaside.
But Mexico Beach is now a splintered, flattened wreck, with expensive boats pushed up halfway onto land, piers and docks destroyed, and the main street through town piled with the jumbled remains of permanent homes and vacation places.
“The mother or all bombs doesn’t do any more damage than this,” said Bailey, a retired U.S. Army major, as he pushed his bicycle down the main drag, marveling at the damage.
Officials were not allowing visitors to drive into town, as the roads were barely passable, but convoys of military trucks and Humvees were moving in, while hard-hatted search-and-rescue crews moved door to door — although often there were no doors — to search for survivors and bodies.
In the late morning, two men from the New Orleans Fire Department could be seen searching the second story of a raised home, the face of which had been sheared off by the wind. From the ground level, the rescue workers looked like dolls in a dollhouse.
Bailey was asked if there was anything that could be done to help.
“Yeah,” he said, pushing off on his bicycle, “turn back the clock two days.”