Imagine you have no home, no car, no food, and no electricity. That was the reality for people who were in the path of Hurricane Michael.

  • Holly Gregory, Melissa Eichman, Jeff Joiner share their Michael stories
  • Our crews met a variety of folks affected
  • Michael devastated parts of Florida Panhandle

It's been two weeks since Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle with winds of 155 mph, but it will take years for some areas to rebuild everything they've lost.

Spectrum Bay News 9 sent several crews to cover the hurricane. They traveled to dozens of communities, both on the coast and inland. Our reporters and photographers were there before, during and after the Category 4 storm.

I asked them what they learned and if it changed their perspective on hurricanes.

After witnessing the devastation first hand, they have some advice for all of us. Here’s what they told me.

Jeff Joiner, Chief Photographer:

"There were many, many good folks in the most affected areas. I had folks with a leveled home that were offering us ice cold water from their cooler. WHY? They clearly need it more than I do, but they were good folks with good hearts…and were all helping each other out."

Jeff says he also met an art store owner who was scared and sad as she packed up her store in the days before the hurricane. After the storm, Kylette Esz returned to find her entire store was blown out, as she had feared. She lost everything but spray painted a message out front – "We're OK. Amen."

An owner of an outdoors-type store and grocery store in Port St. Joe, Lee Duren, reopened a part of his store after the hurricane and put out a sign that said "No gouging, just trying to help."  All of the prices were the same, cash only, and juice and milk were given away for free. 

Here is Jeff's advice if you haven’t been through a hurricane:

"If you’re going to evacuate, don’t wait until the last minute! Trees and power lines in the road could cut off your way out. If your route gets cut off, you could easily get trapped without any shelter other than your vehicle. We saw enough overturned RVs, trucks, boats, semis, and train cars to know that a vehicle is NOT where you want to be when a storm hits!

BE PREPARED. Food, water, fuel…have a lot of them. Don’t assume any relief will be there to assist you. 

Cellular phones will likely be useless. Have a plan to get word out to family and friends that you are OK. Along those lines, even a smartphone with no service can still be useful. Use the map to find your way around - that part isn’t dependent on connectivity. You won’t be able to use GPS but using it as a map is a good trick. In some cases we had "no service," yet the map app on our iPhones would still track our location so we could tell where we were. 

Get to know your immediate neighbors and establish some sort of structure to fulfill whatever needs you may have. If you're worried about folks looting (it happens A LOT after a storm!), set up a rotation for neighborhood watch. Successful areas band together and help each other. Be there to help others and they will help you."

The above image is the damage in downtown Marianna, Florida from Hurricane Michael.

Holly Gregory, Anchor/Reporter:

"We talked with a woman who was trying to find her home near Mexico Beach. She was just coming back from evacuating. Not only could she not find her house, she could not even find her street. She had lived there for 16 years."

Holly also talked to a mother, father and their two children who stayed in a mobile home near Mexico Beach. They said when they felt it being lifted off the ground, they knew they had to get out. They jumped into their pickup truck and took off driving. They could not see anything and ended up crashing into their neighbor’s house. They were able to get out of the truck and into that house’s crawlspace where they waited out the storm.

Here's what Holly says it was like reporting during and after Hurricane Michael.

"We evacuated just ahead of the storm and ended up in Marianna. Everyone there was surprised how strong the storm hit there. The airport showed a 102 mph wind speed but the airport is pretty far out. Local authorities said wind speeds were 120 to 130 mph. It was amazing to watch the powerful eyewall come through and then get into the quiet eye of the storm. We saw blue sky and sunshine for about 30 minutes.”

Holly reported from downtown Marianna, which was torn up from those ferocious winds.

We were heading west after the storm and hit a wall of traffic immediately west of Marianna that kept us basically parked for about 8.5 hours before it opened up and we were able to drive the last hour or so to our destination.

Hurricane Michael destroyed these homes in Mexico Beach.

Melissa Eichman, Reporter:

Melissa reported for us from several cities: Panama City Beach, Panama City, Chipley, Graceville and Lynn Haven.

She started at the coast but evacuated as Hurricane Michael got closer. It's a good thing she left. The hotel she was staying in was damaged and her hotel room window was blown out.

Melissa says she would like to go back to those communities and see how the people there are doing.

"I would like to check back in with the woman who owned the historic home in Lynn Haven that had three trees land on it. I would also like to visit the pastor of the church where the cross stood standing among the blown off roof, damage and debris."

"The people I talked with regretted NOT evacuating when they were told to do so. Advice to people in Tampa Bay: Listen to the warnings, don’t ride out the storm!"

Neighbors helped and comforted each other in the days after Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida panhandle on October 10.