Mexico Beach, Florida: “It’s Gone”

When the sun came up today in Florida and Georgia the devastation was worst than people ever imagined. The drone footage above was taken this morning in Panama City. Hurricane Michael was as ferocious as they come. The worst hurricane Florida’s panhandle has ever seen. It came ashore as a category 4 (almost a category 5). The Panama City News Herald quoted one resident who said, “It looks like an atomic bomb had hit our city.”

As damage is being determined, it’s still too early to assess injuries, but The Weather Channel reports:

Two people have died in the storm, which continued to zip across Georgia and the Carolinas Thursday morning.

One death was reported in the Panhandle. A Greensboro man was killed when a tree crashed on his home, Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Anglie Hightower told the Associated Press. In southern Georgia, an 11-year-old girl was killed when a tree fell on her in Seminole County.

Rescue crews had a hard time accessing one of the worst-hit areas, Mexico Beach. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin flew over this morning in a helicopter and said, “it’s gone.”

The storm was still a hurricane as it made its way into Georgia. It was downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit the Carolinas. The New York Times reports:

As of Thursday morning, more than 800,000 customers had lost power in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to electrical providers in those states. In some Florida counties, such as Franklin and Leon, nearly every customer was without power.

Here are some of the other stunning images of the aftermath.