Mexico Beach was just a dot on the map before the Category 5 hurricane swept ashore with 160 mph winds pushing a 17.5-foot storm surge, obliterating everything in its path. It was a hidden jewel on Florida’s Forgotten Coast, and the residents – 1,072 based on the 2010 U.S. census – aimed to keep it that way. Now, with a storm-scoured slate, residents are not looking to rebuild bigger, just stronger.
The late afternoon sun bathes this gulf-front community in color. New condominiums, painted in shades of saltwater taffy, overlook turquoise water and a cotton-candy sky. But there are other colors, too, not so cheery. Blue tarps cover roofs and red-lettered “for sale” signs proliferate like a virus. The city is still struggling to regain its footing a year after Hurricane Michael’s ruthless assault left 852 of the town’s 1,900 homes substantially damaged or destroyed.
On a windswept hillside in eastern Alabama, white crosses glimmer in the morning sun. Birds twitter in the nearby trees and a fine coating of dew sparkles on the grass like jewels. Angels’ tears, older Southerners call it. On this morning, in this place, no one would be inclined to disagree.
One month ago, hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle, laying waste to coastal cities such as Mexico Beach as well as places like Grand Ridge, 70 miles inland. It left thousands essentially homeless. They join a growing population of the storm-displaced, facing days of particular and peculiar challenges, from Bay County, Fla., to Pender County, N.C., 700 miles to the northeast. For many of these Americans, life has become a world of heartache as they wait for insurance settlements, hope for loans, and scratch together resources as the job market returns to normal.
In Port Aransas, schools had only been in session a few days when the storm hit, replacing beach-happy bliss with cataclysmic chaos. Boats lay strewn across the roadways, draped in live electrical wires. Dead fish littered the high school track. Natural gas mingled with ground water. More than 2,500 homes in the city of 4,000 residents were heavily damaged or destroyed.
Hurricane Harvey left an indelible mark on Refugio and other small communities in what’s called Texas’ Coastal Bend, battering buildings and replacing bucolic bliss with chaos. But the streets in this town of 2,890 people are not empty because of the hurricane – they are empty in spite of it. It’s a brisk nod of Texas defiance in the face of overwhelming loss. A tip of the hat to the unifying roles of faith, family, and football as Texans begin to rebuild a way of life that neither war nor weather has managed to vanquish.
