After Hurricane Michael, search for survivors continues in hard-hit areas of Panhandle
Michael Braun
Search-and-rescue teams spread out along U.S. 98 Friday morning, looking for survivors of Hurricane Michael along a section from Mexico Beach to Apalachicola.
Lt. Jeff Hansen of the Central Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force Four was leading a six-person crew through what remained of homes in the Beacon Hill area of Port St. Joe.
“We want to make sure we have everybody accounted for,” he said.
“Search and rescue,” the crew members yelled at each piece of property, “anybody here?”
As each section was cleared, a mark showing the area had been checked was spray-painted in orange or green fluorescent color.
Dewey and Sharon Metts, who spent the hurricane in their Beacon Hill three-story home, were two of the survivors the crew checked, making sure the couple were fine, asking them if they needed anything and then getting their names and phone number for reference.
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“It just came so fast,” Sharon Metts said.
“It was a five,” her husband insisted, estimating Michael’s strength at landfall. “By that time, it was too late to go. All we could was ride it out.”
Their home, while intact and standing, was devoid of multiple windows and various other bits and pieces, but the Mettses were fine.
“We said a lot of prayers,” Sharon Metts said. Asked if she and her husband ever thought they might not survive Michael, she quickly replied, "Oh, yes.”
As for other survivors, the Mettses said everyone in their little corner of Beacon Hill, who they knew had stayed, had weathered the storm
After getting the Metts' vital information, Hansen said keeping track of survivors included his own crew members.
Search-and-rescue personnel using gut instinct
“I don’t like to micromanage the guys,” Hansen said, but the Chicago-born firefighter said he can’t let anybody in his command get hurt or be put in a situation where they might do so.
With the various stages of destruction visited on each home, the search-and-rescue team had to take care not cause further damage.
“We try to be as nondestructive as possible,” Kyle Ontkos, a firefighter and member of the task force, said.
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Hansen added crew members had to take each home and look at the specific situation using their gut instinct on whether someone might be inside.Clues include vehicles in driveways and unlocked doors. Padlocks on the outside of doors, for instance, were a good sign nobody is inside.
Much of the task force consists of firefighters, Ontkos said, because FEMA considers them knowledgeable about search-and-rescue type situations.
Residents ponder how to survive in the coming weeks
At the Overlook City Bridge on County Road 386, people stopping Friday to try and make a cell phone call found the site not working.
“We heard another Verizon tower went down,” Pam Burrows said. She and her husband, Rusty, came to the bridge to try and call her boss at the local post office.
“They think we’re going to deliver the mail,” Pam Burrows said. The couple are contract carriers in the Bay County area.
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Their house got through the hurricane just fine, she said. “Knock on wood, we’re fine,” she said. “We just had a new roof put on.”
The Burrowses were considering how to survive the coming weeks.
“In a week, we won’t have propane, we won’t have water,” she said. “In a week, we’ll be using water from the intracoastal waterway to flush our toilets.”
Pam Burrows said the couple’s gas generator remained in operation for now.
“We’ve got a gas grill,” she said, “and enough food to feed Pharaoh’s army.”
'We thought it was going to explode'
Like many of the houses on Chestnut Street, Richard Blalock's home was demolished by massive pine trees that snapped like reeds under Michael's terrible force.
One of the trees sheared off the gas meter, causing a catastrophic gas leak that forced the Panama City resident and his girlfriend to flee at the zenith of the monster storm.
Hammered by the wind and blinding rain, they inched his truck toward her home farther down the street as trees and power lines crashed to the ground around them.
The moment was surreal, he said. "It was kind of like a movie."
Two days after the storm, Blalock was sober about the experience. "We thought it was going to explode. What are you going to do?" he shrugged.
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Assessing the state of his home, he was equally stark. "The house is going to be a total loss."
A void discovered in the sediment under his house several years ago complicated his insurance and made it unlikely he'll be able to afford the cost of extensive repairs.
"I'll get some depreciated value for it, so I'll probably just take it and run," he said.
Despite his harrowing experience, though, Blalock said he's not going anywhere.
Panama City has been his home for over 20 years. His job is here. His girlfriend is here. They are planning to raze her home and build a new one, together.
The prosect of another Michael in his lifetime doesn't have him spooked.
"It's one for the record books," he said. "I don't think it's likely to happen again."