Baltimore Sun

Grim reality as death toll rises

Search teams find even more bodies in Panhandle town

- By Russ Bynum and Brendan Farrington

MEXICO BEACH, Fla. — Search and rescue teams began finding bodies in and around Mexico Beach, the ground-zero town nearly obliterate­d by Hurricane Michael, an official said Friday as the scale of the storm's fury became ever clearer.

But he gave no details on the number of dead.

The death toll across the South stood at 13, not counting any victims in Mexico Beach.

Miami Fire Chief Joseph Zahralban, leader of a search-and-rescue unit that went into the flattened town, said: “There are individual­s who are deceased. We do not have a count, but we are working to identify them.”

Zahralban 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 Wednesday with devastatin­g 155 mph winds.

Blocks and blocks of homes were demolished, reduced to splintered lumber or mere concrete slabs by the most powerful hurricane to hit the continenta­l U.S. in decades.

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.

How high it might go was unclear. 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. Whether any of them got out at some point was unclear.

Emergency officials said they have received thousands of calls asking about missing people. But with cellphone service out across vast swaths of the Florida Panhandle, officials said it is possible that some of those unaccounte­d for are safe and just haven't been able to contact friends or family.

Florida emergency officials said they have rescued nearly 200 people and checked 25,000 structures since Michael battered the state.

In a briefing at the state emergency operations center in Tallahasse­e on Friday, authoritie­s said they had wrapped up their initial rapid searches and had begun Brandy Jessen climbs over debris while retrieving some of her parents’ belongings Friday in Mexico Beach, Fla. more-intense searches including inspecting collapsed buildings.

The officials say they've completed 40 percent of these “secondary” searches and hope to finish up during daylight hours Saturday.

Across the ravaged region, meanwhile, authoritie­s set up distributi­on centers 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 recognize 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 mold. “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 early next but didn't say what day he would arrive. “We are with you!” he tweeted. Shell-shocked survivors who barely escaped with their lives told of terrifying winds, surging floodwater­s and homes cracking apart.

Emergency officials said they had completed an initial “hasty search” of the stricken area, looking for the living or the dead, and were now launching into more careful inspection­s of ruined buildings.

Gov. Rick Scott said state officials still “do not know enough” about the fate of those who stayed behind in the region.

“We are not completely done. We are still getting down there,” the governor added.

Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long said he expects to see the death toll rise.

“We still haven't gotten into the hardesthit areas,” he said, adding with frustratio­n: “Very few people live to tell what it's like to experience storm surge, and unfortunat­ely in this country we seem to not learn the lesson.”

Long expressed worry that people have suffered “hurricane amnesia.”

“When state and local officials tell you to get out, dang it, do it. Get out,” he said.

On the Panhandle, Tyndall Air Force Base “took a beating,” so much so that Col. Brian Laidlaw told the 3,600 men and women stationed on the base not to come back. Many of the 600 families who live there had followed orders to pack what they could in a single suitcase as they were evacuated ahead of the storm.

The hurricane's eyewall passed directly overhead, severely damaging nearly every building and leaving many a complete loss. The elementary school, the flight line, the marina and the runways were devastated.

“I will not recall you and your families until we can guarantee your safety. At this time I can't tell you how long that will take, but I'm on it,” Laidlaw wrote. “We need to restore basic utilities, clear our roads of trees and power lines, and assess the structural integrity of our buildings.”

Meanwhile, after moving offshore in recent weeks, a toxic algae bloom has returned to the beaches of the Tampa area, blown in from Michael.

Measuremen­ts posted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservati­on Commission on its red tide website showed high concentrat­ions off Pinellas County,

 ?? DAVID GOLDMAN/AP ??
DAVID GOLDMAN/AP

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