NEWS

Different worlds

ERYN DION,Heather Osbourne
edion@pcnh.com

BAY COUNTY — The divide between east and west has never been more stark.

For years, the gulf between the tourist destination Panama City Beach and its eastern counterpart Panama City has steadily widened, the Hathaway Bridge the crossing point between two cities growing further apart.

In the days after Hurricane Michael, the two were no longer different cities, but different worlds entirely, the landscape and lifestyle contrasting radically within just 15 miles.

Here is a tale of two cities, two ways of recovery bisected by the Hathaway Bridge.

WAFFLE HOUSE - PANAMA CITY BEACH

The comforting aroma of eggs and bacon frying on the Waffle House grill in Panama City Beach fills the air Thursday, as folks pack into the restaurant for a little taste of normalcy.

Customers carefully look over pieces of printed-out paper labeled "Limited Menu," the only real evidence that Hurricane Michael savaged the coast just a week prior. Dave Rickell, executive vice president of the chain known for staying open during natural disasters, is at the Panama City Beach location that day to oversee operations.

Rickell says Waffle House worked quickly following the storm to open the restaurants with the least damage, including two in Panama City Beach. Three of the restaurants were destroyed in Panama City — one will take two weeks to fix, another three and the last will take over a month before it opens again. 

"Business is always brisk after a storm," Rickell says. "We always try to work to get open as quickly as we can. It’s a place for people to not only come to eat, but to share stories and concerns. A huge part of why we respond so quickly is to help communities get back to normal as soon as possible."

Edward Huff, along with his teen son William, share Hurricane Michael stories over syrup-covered waffles. Huff says they've been working with a local church all week to deliver supplies from as far north as Marianna and all the way south to Panama City.

The father and son say seeing places like Waffle House open in Panama City Beach, which was mostly spared by the hurricane's wrath, is a good sign.

"There are big differences from Panama City to here," Huff says. "There is a huge difference once over the Hathaway Bridge. It’s like a line, where things start going downhill really quick.”

WAFFLE HOUSE - PANAMA CITY

The nights in Panama City are endless.

As the sun dips below the horizon around 6 p.m., the area east of the Hathaway Bridge plunges into more than 12 hours of darkness. With the area still without power 10 days after Hurricane Michael, night smothers the city, leaving nothing but the droning sound of generators, the occasional pop of gunshots and the stars for company.

The sun returns at 6:30 a.m. to bring a new day, illuminating the twisted corpses of trees and devastated neighborhoods. No, the sunrise says, it was not all a dream.

For most, mornings mean breakfast, and for many in Panama City, breakfast means Waffle House. The location in town, sitting at the intersection of North Cove Boulevard and U.S. 231, serves all walks of life and counts many city officials as regulars. It’s cheap, it’s good, and most importantly, it’s reliable. So reliable, even FEMA uses it to gauge a disaster. If your Waffle House is closed, something terrible has happened.

One location on Tyndall Parkway has been bisected and gutted.

The restaurant at this intersection, though, appears mostly intact, save the iconic lettered Waffle House sign that’s completely blown out, the letters literally lost in the wind. Half-full bottles of hot sauce and maple syrup sit at each empty booth, waiting for customers.

“We’re about to get her done,” calls out Steve Sutton, maintenance superintendent for Waffle House, as he gathers tools from his trailer parked outside the location.

The back roof of the restaurant caved in during the storm, says Sutton, damaging the commissary where the food and supplies were stored. But the company has made getting these locations back up and running a priority, and the Waffle House Response team is going full tilt.

“Everyone is down here right now,” he says.

TARGET - PANAMA CITY BEACH

Ann Stewart carefully picks from a pile of fruits and veggies just stocked at Target in Pier Park Thursday, preparing for a long journey to Port St. Joe to deliver supplies to friends in need.

An emotional Stewart said she was one of the few whose home was spared. Her home is still without power, but that's the least of her concerns while knowing her friends further west are running out of supplies.

"I'm planning on bringing a bunch of supplies to my friends in a trailer in Port St. Joe," Stewart says. "All they have down there is canned foods, so I'm stocking up on fruits and vegetables to bring over.

"The biggest thing for us right now is not being able to communicate with people," Stewart continues. "The traffic is awful, too. It took me five hours of driving yesterday to get propane and ice. I don’t want to complain because I feel really, really grateful. It’s just crazy and stressful."

Workers quickly stock shelves and freezers with diary, meats and produce. Hurricane Michael still looms over the store, evident by the dozens of missing ceiling tiles and signs stating alcohol sales are prohibited.

Many of the  Pier Park Target workers say they are evacuees from Panama City, where the Target remains closed indefinitely. Brittany Owens, one of those evacuees now living with her family in Niceville, says having a place to work is a relief.

"I know it’s very difficult on our team because a lot of my team members have lost everything," Owens says. "It’s been really hard on them. It feels good that we’re able to come here and work.”

Still, the Target holds glimmers of normalcy.

Abby Rice of Inlet Beach stocks her basket with Halloween decorations and birthday presents Thursday, hoping to bring her children a bit of comfort following the hurricane. Rice says her youngsters spent five straight hours cutting sandwiches for victims without one complaint over the weekend, while she continues to visit the area daily to deliver supplies during school hours.

"This is our lives right now," she says. "Even in Target today you see things missing, you see parts that are closed. A lot of the businesses on this end are overwhelmed with people trying to get gas and supplies."

TARGET - PANAMA CITY

The shelves are bare in Target Panama City, all the merchandise bought off by salvage companies or sitting in huge boxes sorted in front. Plastic tubes snake through the store, pumping hot air into the ceiling in a desperate attempt to stave off mold. Workers with SRM Recovery, the large loss firm that handles Target, line up outside with hard hats and fluorescent vests ready to get their first look at the store.

Like most buildings in the crossroads of State 77 and U.S. 231, Target was hit hard by Hurricane Michael. Also like most buildings in these crossroads, the parking lot has become a staging area, a sea of law enforcement vehicles, command centers and relief workers.

But among the first responders and disaster response, you can still find Target employees returning to work, searching for a sense of normalcy in the chaos unfolding around them.

“I chose to come back here,” says Roger Scott, team member at Target Panama City. “This is my store.”

Scott rode out the storm at his home then promptly returned to work as soon as it was safe. When he came back on Friday, three days after Hurricane Michael, there was still two inches of water on the floor.

Rob Berry, senior team leader at the store, says every ceiling tile will need to be replaced, along with all the carpet. Some walls will need to be demolished and rebuilt. Right now, they’re looking at being operational some time between December and February.

“It’s going to be a while,” he says.

But Target has been good to them, he adds. Anyone still in town can come to the store and pitch in with the cleanup for hours or go to the Beach location, and anyone who evacuated will be given work.

“They were told they will get hours wherever they evacuated to,” he said.

PANAMA CITY BEACH CITY HALL

Debbie Ward has to count with her fingers to figure out just how many days the City Hall employees have worked tirelessly to aid their neighbors across the Hathaway Bridge.

"It's been 11 days?" she asks in disbelief. "We've had different staff going over the bridge every day to help over there. A lot of people who work here live over there. We realize we’re serving as the hub for the whole county because we’re the closest place to get supplies."

Ward says City Hall remained open, working as a shelter for officials who were the first to aid the community after the storm passed. On Thursday, City Hall is where public officials meet to extend the Panama City Beach curfew and lift the alcohol ban inside the city limits.

In the parking lot of City Hall, semi trucks await donations to ship off to the other side of the bridge. Volunteers are there also, offering free ice and water.

While most City Hall employees have seen the damage of Hurricane Michael firsthand, Ward says she still hasn't gathered up the strength to drive across the bridge. All she's seen so far, she says, are pictures of her Lynn Haven home damaged by Michael. Her husband asked her not to go home.

"Even though I see pictures and drone photos, he tells me it’s just not the same," Ward says. "You just don’t stop and think about the magnitude of it.”

SPRINGFIELD CITY HALL

Springfield Mayor Ralph Hammond is a man of action.

Anyone who knows him says he is always the first person to jump in and help, whether it’s hopping on an excavator and helping to demolish condemned houses or cutting through thick brush to help firefighters reach a structure blaze.

It’s no surprise then, that Hammond rode out Hurricane Michael inside Springfield City Hall off Highway 22, running the command center with police and firefighters. Looking at the state of the building after the storm, though, it’s a surprise he made it out at all.

Both of the building’s two roofs were peeled off. Ceilings collapsed in every office, including the one where off-duty law enforcement officers were quartered. Every entrance except one was shuttered, Hammond says, and that door was blocked during the storm, trapping them inside the shuddering, shaking building for more than three hours.

“It wasn’t a tornado sound,” he says. “That banging and beating, and we realized we couldn’t get out. There wasn’t no place to go anyhow — this was the safest place to be.”

Every city office, including the police department, maintenance yard and community center, was 100-percent destroyed, Hammond says, along with every computer and every program. Right now, he doesn’t even know the state of the city’s records.

The floor squishes and buckles with every step. Insulation hangs from drooping wires, swaying in the breeze like ghosts. Light punctures the gaping holes in the ceiling. Hammond stands in the remains of the planning department, the constant dinging of a malfunctioning alarm bell from a nearby railroad crossing cutting through the silence. When asked what it was like in the building, he pauses for a long moment.

“I hate to say it,” he answers. “But pure hell.”

There is a silver lining though, he explains. In an amazing stroke of foresight, the city purchased the property belonging to Springfield Nursery on Transmitter Road about two years ago, when the owners came to them with plans of retirement. With the state planning on widening Highway 22, they were in line to lose the front of their building anyway, Hammond says, and needed to make a move. Now, they just need to make it faster.

“In one sense, it’s a blessing,” he says. “We didn’t want to move this way, but we’d already started planning.”

RUNAWAY ISLAND

The Gulf of Mexico's emerald green waters sparkle below the back deck of Runaway Island restaurant Thursday as customers sip on cocktails and eat seafood.

Runaway Island was one of the first popular tourist locations to open following Hurricane Michael, serving up a full menu and even alcohol at noon after the ban was lifted. Although people are hungry and ready to get back to some sort of normalcy, customers like Heather White says all they feel right now is survivor’s guilt.

"It's an emotional feeling when you see all of the devastation," White says. "You really can't help but feel guilty that your home made it through okay."

DOWNTOWN PANAMA CITY

By locals, for locals, during the seemingly distant Time Before Michael, historic downtown Panama City would fill to the brim for lunch hour.

On Thursday, a week after Michael, it’s filled to the brim with debris. With no power or clean water in the city, opening is a distant hope for many restaurant owners.

The front porch of The Place stands in shambles. Around the corner, Trigo fared better but is still closed, though the outside dining area was somehow untouched by the storm. Just a few feet from the signature porch, a clock that once sat atop a nearby bank lies on the sidewalk, completely smashed.

CARILLON BEACH

The private neighborhood of Carillon Beach remains mostly deserted Thursday, save for a few property managers and a wedding party surveying the area in golf carts.

One of the property managers said almost all of vacationers cancelled their reservations at Carillon Beach until January, and residents are still unable to make their way back home.

Aside from the loss of income caused by Hurricane Michael, however, the beautiful Carillon Beach homes are untouched by the storm.

THE ARBORS — PANAMA CITY

For many residents in The Arbors apartments on 11th Street, the privacy of four walls and a roof is gone.

Audra Burkett, who lives in the building across from one of the structures that lost its roof, caught the whole thing on video. Her apartment is largely untouched, save for one hole in the wall. The families in those top floor apartments were home when the roof came off, she says, and for days they had to stay there while management worked to move them to an undamaged unit.

“I lived here on and off for 20 years,” Burkett says. “My mother said this would happen sooner or later.

For the first few nights after the storm, Burkett says, the complex was alive with radios playing and grills going. She even sat up playing the guitar, trying to stave off the silence of the dark.

A week later, though, the silence has won. The buildings are being condemned, and the looting, which up until now had been under control, is about to get worse as people prowl the empty units looking for leftovers. For the first time since before the storm, Burkett is starting to get nervous.

“I’m terrified, because I’m little and all by myself,” said Burkett. “And I only have two candles left.”