Hurricane Michael cripples Panama City with heartbreaking devastation

PANAMA CITY, Florida — Winking through clearing clouds, the morning sun revealed the true extent of damage to this picturesque seaside town clobbered by Hurricane Michael, its sugar-sand beaches now littered with debris and the turquoise Gulf of Mexico waters receding following the storm's rage.

Stunned residents had only a few hours Wednesday to take in the damage before nightfall, and sunrise Thursday brought fresh horrors around every corner: Roofs ripped from homes, trees torn out by their roots, cars crushed by falling debris, downed power lines, and floodwaters still running through some streets.

Authorities said Michael was one of the most powerful storms to ever hit Florida and said it will likely be weeks before roads are cleared and electricity is fully restored. Panama City was ground zero for the storm's devastation.

Panama City after Hurricane Michael 

"It got tore up. It looks like a bomb went off," said Chris Allen, 48, as he surveyed the damage to the historic downtown.

A curfew was in effect Wednesday night and Thursday morning to prevent looting, although Jane Lindsey, 72 was taking no chances. Lindsey and her husband spent the night in lawn chairs guarding their store, the Elegant Endeavors Antique Emporium on Harrison Avenue. The wind tore off the roof, poured water into all three floors, and blew out their front windows.

"We've never seen this kind of devastation," Lindsey said, her feet crunching the broken glass that once was her plate-glass windows. "It's such a loss for all these families, for all these small businesses."

'We don't even know if we have a house left' 

Lindsay was so worried about her store that she and her husband abandoned their nearby home to the storm: "We don't even know if we have a house left. We can't leave here."

For those who weren't in their homes when Hurricane Michael hit, they faced an agonizing wait to learn how their property fared.

Interstate 10, the state's main east-west highway, was barely open Wednesday, accessible only to drivers willing to slalom through downed trees and debris. Power outages are widespread, the hum of generators the only sign of habitation for much of the area.

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The hurricane tore off most of the roof of Jim Hankins’ brick ranch home in Panama City, and an uprooted oak tree flipped his son’s Pontiac Grand Prix on its side. Hankins is the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, and he lives across the street.

“I haven’t had any contact with any of my church members because I don’t have any phone service,” he said, wearing red work gloves after mopping his flooded floors. “I’m concerned about my church members. I have some elderly church members, and I don’t know what the situation is with them.”

Michael’s gusts snapped his driveway basketball hoop like a twig.

“Heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking,” said Kay Hankins, his wife, fighting back tears. “There are devastating events that you see on TV all over: Katrina, other disasters. But until you’re really there — and realize your city is gone — it’s just heartbreaking.”

Michael crushed cars, roofs and buildings 

The storm walloped Panama City and nearby Panama City Beach, the winds so strong they toppled railroad cars, snapped utility poles and flipped RVs and SUVs like toys. The streets and parking lots glisten with broken glass, a macabre imitation of the sandy beaches nearby. Police officers spent the night patrolling the area to prevent looting and responding to calls for assistance, making do with damaged patrol cars eased across downed power lines and even small buildings flipped into the middle of streets. The air itself smells like a sawmill, a legacy of the thousands of shredded trees.

In Panama City, the Forest Park neighborhood’s namesake pine trees turned into destructive sledgehammers during the storm, crushing cars, roofs and outbuildings.

Michael Brown rode out Hurricane Michael crammed in his bathroom with wife Pauline; kids Rance, 16, and Zak, 13; Cszonka, an aging chocolate Labrador; and three cats. He went into the living room to place a bucket under a leak, and a gust yanked up a corner of the roof.

“A blast of wind hit me in the face, blew through the house. You could feel the pressure in the house: Pop. Everybody’s ears popped,” Brown said.

A large pine fell atop their Acura RSX and Ford Explorer in the driveway. 

The family spent Thursday morning pushing wheelbarrows of debris from inside their wrecked house to the front yard.

“We bought this house Feb. 28. We got married the Fourth of July. Three months later, the top got ripped off the house,” he said.

Across the street, Janice Mikula lost a three-bedroom rental home, a workshop and a storage building.

“The rain was so heavy you couldn’t even see out the windows. Everything was flying around. We could not see the shop had been obliterated,” Mikula said, standing in her yard.

“And the wind — well, it broke that magnolia tree in half,” she said, pointing.

Tony Johnson and a team of rescuers knocked on his godmother’s door near sunset Wednesday in hard-hit Lynn Haven. She said, “I can’t get up!” And the rescue team guy said, “Can I break down your door?” She said, “Whatever you have to do to get in!”

His godmother, Peggy Smith, is in her mid-70s.

“We got in, and the tree had fell through the roof," Tony Johnson said. "One of the limbs had busted her face. She got a bad black eye, busted her nose, broken her clavicle, two broken bones in her neck and two or three places in her back.”

A police cruiser transported Smith to Gulf Coast Regional Medical Center. Thursday morning, she was loaded onto a stretcher, placed in an ambulance and driven to a parking lot near the emergency room, where a helicopter flew her to Fort Walton Beach.

Helicopters flew in and out throughout the morning, transporting patients to other hospitals.

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Carl Roby weathered Hurricane Michael from his 55-foot fishing boat, the Cynthia Renee, at the St. Andrews Marina in Panama City. He and his vessel were battered by 150-knot winds, but both escaped relatively unscathed.

Around him however, the bows of dunked boats poked above the wave and the water’s surface shined from the sheen of spilled oil. 

Surveying the damage with a cigarette clamped between his lips and a wrench clenched in his hand, Roby said dryly, “I’ve been in hurricanes, but this was a real one.”

James Cavalieri also took in the damage at the docks as he toured the surrounding St. Andrews neighborhood. A transplant from Atlanta, Cavalieri said Michael was his first Hurricane.

“I’ve been walking through the neighborhood and I don’t recognize it,” he said.

Downed trees and power lines littered the roads, and several nearby shops were severely wind-damaged. 

“This will never be the same as it was before yesterday,” he said. “It will come back, but things will be totally different.”