“This was our heart,” Daniel said of the home, now reduced to rubble. “It’s just gone.”
Her description could be used for any number of homes turned into so much broken lumber, trashed household items and mostly just tiny pieces of life by Hurricane Michael on Wednesday.
A lot of the homes on this stretch of road from Panama City to St. Joseph and beyond were affected to some degree, with the majority from Mexico Beach to St. Joe bearing the brunt of the surge and ferocious winds.
“I was sure it would be here,” Daniel said as she stared at the remains. “We just rebuilt this. We bought it four years ago and completely rebuilt it. We’re contractors.”
Looking at her home, and at the bones of beach homes from across 98 that now surrounded her dwelling’s shell, Daniel didn’t know what to do, think or say.
“I don’t know how to process this,” she said. “I’m just in shock, it’s all so surreal.”
'The water was coming up'
Down a bit on 98, James and Cynthia Murphy, homeowners in what they called the Beacon Hill area of St. Joe, were taking a quick first look through the remains of their home.
“We were down here until the last minute,” Cynthia Murphy said. “Then we ran up to a friend's home. The wind pushed us across the parking lot. It was very stressful.”
The couple, who occupied one of four apartments in their building, salvaged some pots and dishes and were looking for car keys. Three of their vehicles, two described as in sports cars in excellent condition, laid stacked up behind their building between a truck and debris.
“We had to go, the water was coming up,” Cynthia Murphy said. “I couldn’t find my cat; she’s probably dead.”
The couple escaped to the friend’s home, behind theirs but much higher in elevation, and stuffed themselves in a corner bedroom while James Murphy held the door closed.
“They evacuated the Gulf side,” his wife said, but the couple was on the opposite side and stayed. “They probably knew we wouldn’t go.”
'I could see stuff flying by'
The remains of homes were strewn all along 98. There were spoons, knives, pots and pans, power tools, shovels, glassware, chairs and clothing.
Also along 98 was the incessant droning — beep, beep, beep — of smoke detectors, apparently set off by the saltwater surge. In one section of a home that leaned up hundreds of yards from where it once stood on the beach, the kitchen cabinet held dishware, cups, saucers, all lined up, unbroken and awaiting the next meal that would never come.
Most of Mexico Beach was off-limits to all but residents and first responders as a door-to-door search was underway by two-person teams with dogs. “It’s going well,” one of the team members shouted.
While Bay County Sheriff’s Office deputies barred unauthorized entry, lines of emergency vehicles with decals from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Florida Highway Patrol, search and rescue units and even a pair of ambulances from Collier County EMT, swiftly flashed by.
One of the hardest-hit spots in Florida is Mexico Beach, where Michael crashed ashore Wednesday as a Category 4 monster with 155 mph (250 kph) winds. (Oct. 11) AP
In a little corner of Mexico Beach that was accessible, Deanna Pack and her fiancé Brandon Felts were helping get a tree off a friend’s home.
“Just about everyone in this development lost their employment,” she said, including the friend they were helping had a restaurant, Killer Seafood.
Pack said she used to clean homes for a living. “Just about everyone I take care of is in Mexico Beach,” she said.
Pack said she and Felts stayed in their home about six miles away in the Lake Charles area during Michael.
“(Brandon) put me in a tile bathroom and put thick padding up and then boarded me in,” she said. He gave me a hammer and said if he didn’t make it, to smash my way out.”
Her fiancé did make it, eventually crawling into the bathroom with her.
As Michael tore through the area, Pack said, “He held me and told me he loved me."
While some neighborhood people who stopped declined to talk, saying the ordeal was just too much, Hal Summers described how he escaped his parents' flooded home with his cat, Mr. Red.
Summers said he had planned to use an attic for shelter if the surge got too high. When he opened his garage to get there, however, water flooded in, up to his neck.
“I got caught off-guard by the storm,” he said. “I was holding the cat and trying to get to the roof, but stepped off a rail and submerged, with the cat.”
Summers managed to get back to the house and barricade himself inside a bathroom until the storm passed.
“I could see stuff flying by,” he said.
Oh, and Mr. Red survived, too.
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