May 4th 2019
...in Panama Beach, Panama City, Mexico Beach, FL for miles and miles around?
Reaching 160mph winds?
Riding our bicycles through these areas for 2-3 days left me in a state of shock...disbelieve! Seven month have passed and it looks like the cleanup has barely began. People are left still in shock, homeless. Debris .....some places where houses had been standing are empty because Michael had carried the debris elsewhere...all over the rooftops. A lot of the dead trees are still standing. People are dealing, but we’ve been told and it was obvious, that help had pulled out during the 35 days government shutdown from December 22nd 2018 until January 25th 2019 and was not picked up again after the shut down. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) provided 14 RVs in Mexico Beach, FL (population was 1,072 in 2010). The village is considered wiped out. It was so depressing, I didn’t stop to take enough photographs (I’ll never make a good journalist!), especially riding through Mexico Beach, I was exhausted by the devastation. We camped near the road on a grassy area where the little town used to have emergency tents set up..they must have all gone elsewhere..
This Hurricane left places looking like tornados came through -clawed away on houses
https://images.app.goo.gl/SK3RaAWHCUyHPCkB8
https://images.app.goo.gl/Aavqmmt3HDzAARw17
https://images.app.goo.gl/HFKXa5TSfv9NHRJ77
https://images.app.goo.gl/3iRjGWL58FqinY2p8 (This picture I could have taken myself - we rode our bikes right past these houses and they look just the same.
https://images.app.goo.gl/PUf5TNekPgRKPA1P7
and moved them, rolled up metal roofs, displaced RVs and trailers, broke trees in half as if they were matchsticks,
killing 80% of the forest in this area by breaking off the foliage and drowning the roots.
