Hurricane Michael Cleanup

About 4 weeks ago Hurricane Michael at hurricane strength 5 hit just southeast of Panama City, Florida in the Florida Panhandle wiping out Mexico Beach and severely damaging nearby towns and cities. The following week was spent tarping roofs and searching for survivors. The last 2 weeks thousands of Mormon Helping Hands (now called Helping Hands of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) from throughout the Southeast have been helping the locals put their lives back together. This weekend Caroly and I joined 25 volunteers aged 12 and older from the Bunnell Ward in Flagler County, 6 hours away, to help out.

On the way there we could see the power of the hurricane that zipped north through the panhandle of Florida, through Georgia, and South and North Carolina. As you can see from these pictures, between Tallahassee and Marianna the beautiful forests have been changed to expanses of broken matchsticks. Click on the pictures for a closer look.

This sight continues all the way south from Marianna to Panama City. This gas station greets you as you enter Panama City.

The command center for the Helping Hands is the Stake Center. Note that the steeple and the flag pole are now on the front lawn.

The inside suffered water damage so the carpets and benches have been removed, Some of the ceiling has been damaged.

Here are some views of the neighborhood  near the church,

The most of the Helping Hands from Central and Southern Florida camped out in a nearby abandoned airport. We stayed at the Kannas Condo in Panama City Beach, 20 miles away to the west where there was much less damage. In fact you could hardly tell that a hurricane had come through. Ron joined our work crew  on Saturday. See if you can find him in any of the pictures.

We were assigned to help out in Lynn Haven, a  very nice suburb about 10 minutes north of the Stake Center. Families who wanted help registered their needs with the Helping Hands command center where we received their requests and with our chain saws and other equipment headed out. In this neighborhood the roofs had already been patched if the building was salvageable so we mostly cut up fallen trees and moved the logs, branches, and broken fences to the front street. The neighborhood no longer has a forest settling.

 Saturday and Sunday we were able to clear 8 yards, mostly for widows and older people. Afterwards we sang them a church song, either "I am a child of God" or "As I have loved you, love one another." One older couple said that someone came by earlier and said he would clear his driveway for $3,000. He burst into tears when we told him that we would do not just the driveway but his entire yard for free. I think there were 8 trees down in his front and back yards.

One family was so thankful that our team from Bunnell had helped them for free the previous week that they insisted that when we came back this week to help their neighbor across the street that they would have hamburgers, hotdogs, and all the trimmings ready for us.  It was delicious. The brownies and ice cream especially hit the spot.

Everywhere we went we were treated royally by the grateful people. The owner of a mobile Hawaiian Ice stand even drove throughout the town giving free snow cones to anyone with a yellow Helping Hands shirt. He said he had given out several thousand that day.

Here is most of our group with one of the families that hosted the hamburger/hot dog feast.

There were several thousand Helping Hands in Panama City and surrounding towns this weekend.  Others will be returning the next three weekends. There is still that much damage to help clean up.