MAC GORDON: Time passage doesn’t erase Michael’s devastation

The spotlight on areas of the Southeast where Hurricane Michael viciously roared ashore on Oct. 10 has begun to fade nationally, but not locally.

The year-end wrap-ups delivered by myriad news distributors included the devastation caused by the first hurricane to take a direct hit on the Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia in so many years that few long-time residents seem to remember the last one.

The question now is: What will the new year bring?

One who lives full- or part-time in these parts, as I do, worries much about the long-range future of the communities obliterated in some cases by Michael and simply “hard hit” in others.

Make no mistake, Mexico Beach, Fla., where the storm’s eye came ashore from the sultry Gulf of Mexico, was obliterated, like some areas of the Mississippi Coast were demolished by Camille and Katrina, almost 40 years apart.

Mexico Beach is no Nassau, no Turks and Caicos, no Fiji or Acapulco. Not even a Destin, also located along U.S. 90 but a world away in panache. Mexico Beach was a mecca for the mostly middle-class vacationer with its one high-rise and few other amenities.

I have encountered a few people who called Mexico Beach home. They swear they won’t move, despite currently having no place to rest at night. They love beach life so much, they might be sleeping on it nowadays. Some others, possibly more honest about the future, wonder how the place can be revived.

Panama City Beach is big and rich enough to recover, although that won’t happen overnight. The remainder of the region’s small cities are splintered literally and figuratively. I once reported estimates of 1 million trees down. Now, the experts are saying 2.5 million trees down. This situation not only affects residential homeowners and business owners, like the plethora of area paper mills constantly needing fresh timber, but aesthetics as well.

Early County, Georgia, and its county seat of Blakely, and nearby Fort Gaines, both of which are near our residence, have made great strides in cleaning the streets of hurricane debris. However, in many off-street green spaces are fallen trees by the dozens — and no plan to go in and retrieve them, leaving gaping holes of deleterious ravage. Our woods are crisscrossed with thousands of downed trees of all sizes, causing headaches for loggers, pulpwooders and hunters. I imagine even the rattlesnakes are puzzled by it all.

A dozen or so homes in the area were split in their middle by mighty oaks and pines. Many remain in that condition today, collecting rainfall and grit by the buckets. Some will likely be leveled because of the lack of requisite insurance or sky-high rebuilding costs.

Southwest Georgia is a major producer of row crops such as cotton, peanuts, soybeans, wheat and corn. Crop losses are staggering as a result of the hellaceous storm, ranging to upwards of $2 billion. Word is that Michael’s wrath will finish off some farmers financially, adding to the disaster at hand.

Natural disasters are terrible wherever they occur. Seems to me the one storm fading the quickest in news coverage and sheer remembrance was Hurricane Harvey, which smashed the Texas coast in August 2017. Recent tsunamis in Indonesia killed hundreds and delivered pictures of despair and horror to our warm great rooms. How long will the world remember?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency never seems to have enough resources to help disaster areas recover in a rapid fashion. They’ve tried, I’ll say that. Georgia’s emergency disaster agency has put in a lot of manhours trying to help the region. After some storms, politicians make quick-hit visits, talking big and sounding earnest as they step over the wreckage. Then, they forget the nightmarish scene upon departure.

While the hope is that America and the world will be spared such ruin in this new year, the history of natural disaster inevitability is always upon us. May God be alongside when they return.

Mac Gordon , a former reporter for The Albany Herald, lives near Blakely and Fort Gaines. He can be reached at [email protected].