Officials: Michael death toll at 30

MEXICO BEACH, Fla. — More than a week after Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle, residents were returning to their homes to try to piece together lives from rubble as the overall death toll from the storm rose to at least 30.

Authorities in Florida on Thursday confirmed 20 deaths related to the storm, which retained hurricaneforce winds as far inland as southern Georgia, and also affected the Carolinas and Virginia.

Six deaths were reported in Virginia, mostly from flash flooding.

North Carolina had three deaths, and Georgia had one.

In storm-ravaged Mexico Beach on Florida’s Gulf Coast, residents were allowed to return home for the first time Wednesday, finding pieces of their lives scattered across the sand and a community altered.

Across the region, stunned residents continued picking up the pieces on Thursday, as many remained without electricity.

Nancy Register sobbed uncontrollably after finding no trace of the large camper where she’d lived with her husband. She was particularly

distraught over the loss of an old, black-and-white photo of her mother, who died of cancer.

Just up the road, tears ran down Lanie Eden’s face as she and husband Ron Eden sifted through sand in search of items they left before evacuating from the small beach house they’ve rented each October for years. They didn’tfindmuch—justa large pack of toilet paper that somehow stayed dry and a son’s camp chair.

“Basically, we lost ‘old Florida.’ It’s all gone,” said Lanie Eden.