Hurricane Michael was one for the Record Books
nwfDailyNews.com
By DEL STONE JR Posted Dec 30, 2018 at 2:49 PM
It was the most powerful hurricane to strike the Florida Panhandle in modern history, and by the time its buzz-saw winds died down over 60 people lay dead and billions of dollars in damages had been wrought.
Walls of muddy brown saltwater erased Gulf-front villages, and Category 4 winds cut a calamitous swath through subdivisions and pine forests all the way to Georgia. Even the mighty Air Force, with its stealthy, high-tech fighter jets, could not resist the destructive onslaught of wind and rain.
Comparisons to previous hurricanes are pointless — there are no comparisons. It was a storm for the record books, surpassing Opal and Ivan in every horrible category a hurricane has to offer.
For the rest of their lives, survivors will talk about that terrible day in October 2018 when the sun never came up but the water did.
All for a hurricane named Michael.
Hurricane models called it
Long before the first of Michael’s rain bands rolled ashore, weather forecasters had trained a suspicious eye on a building patch of clouds in the Caribbean Sea.
In fact, anybody who has ever griped about a weatherman screwing up the forecast should read the Michael archives at the National Hurricane Center (www.nhc.com). There, they would see for themselves how advanced weather models, with eerie prescience, predicted days beforehand the clenched fist of isobars that would become the Panhandle’s deadliest storm.
This is from the NHC’s statement archive dated 4 p.m. Oct. 6, five days before Hurricane Michael:
“The system could bring storm surge, rainfall, and wind impacts to portions of the northern Gulf Coast by mid-week, although it is too soon to specify the exact location and magnitude of these impacts. Residents in these areas should monitor the progress of this system.” The statement indicated the storm was expected to move ashore at Fort Walton Beach with winds of 70 mph.
The first use of the word “hurricane” occurred the next day when models fell into unanimous agreement that Michael’s winds would reach at least 75 mph prior to landfall.
From the Oct. 7 statement: “In fact, nearly every piece of intensity guidance brings the cyclone to hurricane strength before it reaches land, including the GFS, ECMWF, and UKMET global models, which all show significant deepening of the central pressure.”
Later on Oct. 7, the hurricane center shifted its predicted track slightly to the east, moving the Fort Walton Beach-Destin area out of the center of the probability cone and bringing the Panama City, Apalachicola and Mexico Beach location into the area of greater threat.
From that point Michael obediently followed the path laid out by predictions, intensifying right up until the moment it slammed into the Gulf Coast with triple-digit winds and towering storm surges.
Michael’s super powers
A hurricane feeds on heat and moisture. Those two ingredients lay in abundance across the northern Gulf Coast in early October.
That month was the second hottest on record for the world, according to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. Here in Florida, October was among the five hottest months on record, the Mobile office of the National Weather Service reported. Temps were running into the upper 80s and low 90s, according to archived data.
All that heat had to go somewhere, and one place it went was into the water. Temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico on Oct. 6, 2018 were as high as 90 degrees near the Yucatan Channel to the mid-80s along the Northwest Florida coastline, according to Rutgers University.
Throw in record-high air temps, lots of humidity and seawater only 14 degrees cooler than a hot tub and you’ve got an intoxicating brew for tropical cyclone development.
And develop Michael did, despite westerly wind shear that could have decapitated its thunderstorms, and dry air that should have squeezed the atmosphere around it like a sponge. Above the hurricane lay a wind pattern that helped suck air out of the center of circulation, causing surface air to be pulled in faster and faster.
Once the shear relaxed, Michael intensified rapidly, its winds ramping up from 110 mph to 155 mph in a single day, and its barometric pressure plunging 46 millibars at the same time. Those are the kinds of numbers you see in a Roland Emmerich disaster flick.
Should I stay or should I go?
As with most approaching hurricanes, some vowed to stay and “ride out” the storm, while others chose to watch from afar. Most everyone undertook some kind of preparation.
For long-time residents it was a familiar drill: board windows, fill sandbags, stock up on batteries and bottled water, and lay in supplies of food. Storm shelters opened and cars jammed highways heading north, east and west out of the Panhandle.
Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency on Oct. 7 for all of Northwest Florida and activated 500 guardsmen with the Florida National Guard to help with responding to the crisis.
“If you’re under an evacuation order, leave now,” Scott said during a press conference in Walton County. “First responders are not coming out in the middle of this storm. If you are on the fence about whether to evacuate, don’t be on the fence, do it. This storm may kill you.”
The Daily News reported that on Tuesday afternoon, “President Donald Trump approved a pre-landfall emergency declaration. This declaration will provide important resources and assistance from the federal government, including personnel, equipment and supplies, as well as making available funding sources for emergency protective measures.”
At ground zero, Panama City leaders declared a local state of emergency and approved overtime for city workers in anticipation of the storm. “We want to err on the side of caution and help keep people safe,” said Panama City Mayor Greg Brudnicki, as quoted in the Panama City News Herald.
The Bay County evacuation Scott alluded to came on Oct. 9. The News Herald reported that evacuees packed their cars or clogged streets to escape as a result of the mandatory order, folks like Julie Logsdon and her husband. “I’m hoping the pets don’t kill each other,” she laughed, referring to their two dachshunds and two Russian blue cats, as they loaded their SUV to head east to Jacksonville, where they would stay with relatives.
Tammy Cherry said she was thinking of relocating west to Alabama. “I’m not scared, to be honest, because I believe it’s not going to be as bad of an impact. But I still might head to the Mobile area.”
Others defied storm jitters and vowed to stay.
As he loaded bags of ice from an automated machine, Fyderrick Bush of Millville told a reporter, “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t run from nothing.”
Antionice Chancellor and her 7-year-old son, Xavier McKenzie, were also planning to stay and had their supplies all ready. Chancellor, a lifelong resident of the area, said she made it through Opal and Ivan just fine. “We’ve got flashlights and candles and tons of bottled water.”
They would need them.
Oct. 10, 2018
In Fort Walton Beach, the morning dawned gray and wet. There was a restless expectancy to the air, and the dank, fishy smell of red tide wafted over the town.
But amid the gloom of shuttered businesses and empty roads a bright beacon of normalcy shone through: the Dodge store at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Eglin Parkway.
While others had gotten out of Dodge for the approaching hurricane, Dodge’s Fried Chicken remained cheerfully open, peddling gasoline, pizza sticks and cold beer to any and all who dropped by.
The 24/7 gas, snacks, hot food and beer emporium would briefly close later in the day. “I promise, just as soon as we can, we’re going to open right back up for you folks!” store manager Christy Vires told customers as she and staff member Cindy Littlefield prepared to dim the lights and lock the doors.
In hindsight the weather never really got that bad in Okaloosa County. The area received anywhere from half an inch to an inch of rain, and wind gusts were in the 30-40 mph range, according to records.
Not so a few miles down the road.
At 9:30 a.m. the Florida Highway Patrol declared the Hathaway Bridge in Panama City unsafe to cross as sustained winds crept over 50 mph. They urged people to stay off the roads and shelter in place.
Then, in the following hours, all hell broke loose.
Winds continued to rise and so did the water. Any hope of escape drowned with submerged roads. As the storm moved closer, the wind began to howl, filling the air with debris. Trees fell and buildings surrendered to the 155 mph barrage.
Plywood and metal were ripped off a Holiday Inn Express on Panama City Beach. Part of an awning fell, shattering the glass front door. The rest of the awning landed on cars parked below it, the Associated Press reported.
At Sun Harbor Marina in Panama City, the Phantom of the Aqua, which lay famously stranded on a Walton County beach after running aground during last year’s Hurricane Nate, was ripped from its moorings and once again storm-tossed and damaged, maybe permanently this time.
In Eastpoint, which was scarred by a forest fire earlier in the year, Jimmy Boone insisted on staying behind in his brand-new mobile home to make sure his belongings would be OK. As gusts of winds began to rock the trailer, he was sure it – and he – would not survive what the fire had spared.
At Tyndall Air Force Base, hangars protecting F-22 Raptor stealth jets began to give way under Michael’s onslaught. One of those facilities, Hangar 5, had its roof ripped away. Others had doors torn off and holes smashed in walls.
Videos taken during the storm showed roofs flipping into the air dissolving into shrapnel. Trees were snapped in half, as if a giant weed whacker had mowed down entire forests. Everywhere there was water, rushing over the beaches and docks and seawalls to knock down walls and flood buildings not already ripped apart by the wind. Power lines were torn down and at one point a million and a half people sat in the dark, hoping their houses would hold together.
The barometric pressure plunged to an incredible 919mb, third-lowest of any hurricane to strike the continental United States behind the infamous Labor Day storm of 1935 and Camille in 1969. Tyndall Air Force Base would record a wind gust of 139 mph before its anemometer failed. A water level station in Apalachicola recorded a surge of nearly 8 feet. Later, the U.S. Geological Survey would measure a storm surge of over 19 feet in one unlucky Mexico Beach location.
The storm was an egalitarian destroyer. A school lost its gymnasium. The ribs of a church were exposed after its brick walls collapsed. Hospitals had their roofs ripped up and windows broken. Panama City Mall suffered catastrophic water damage and may never reopen. Police departments were knocked out of commission. Stores, gas stations, virtually everything and everyone suffered some kind of damage.
Other Panhandle towns that often escaped a hurricane’s worst fell victim to Michael’s assault. Residents of inland communities like Marianna and Blountstown watched incredulous as buildings were destroyed, trees knocked down and the power grid wrecked.
The AP talked to Joe Marino in Tallahassee, who had a tree land on his chimney. “It was like an earthquake,” he said. “The bookshelf shook and a frame fell down. It was weird. We went outside and you could smell the pine, and there it was, laying on the chimney.”
The storm was far worse than anybody expected. “It’s worse than anyone could have imagined,” said Panama City contractor Josh Carroll, talking to a News Herald staff writer. He mentioned a derailed train along U.S. Highway 231, prompting his daughter, Stacy Oxemham, to add “It must have been really bad to push over an entire train.”
Eric Blake, a weather forecaster with the NHC, tweeted on Oct. 10, ”… never in my worst nightmares did I think we would be dealing with a 155 mph hurricane at landfall. …”
Michael rolled ashore between Tyndall and Mexico Beach just after 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 10. It powered through the eastern Florida Panhandle on a path that would carry it into southwest Georgia as a major hurricane.
Mercifully, the hurricane did not linger. By midnight it was in southwest Georgia, taking its now 100 mph winds along for the ride. It was downgraded to a tropical storm near Macon the next day, and by midnight it had reached the border of North Carolina and Virginia, headed for the Atlantic Ocean and an eventual second landfall in Portugal.
And with that, the 13th hurricane of the 2018 season was over.
The aftermath
The snarl of chainsaws. Sirens. Helicopter blades chopping at the sky.
The residents of Bay, Franklin and Gulf counties collectively went through the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Nearly everyone interviewed by Gatehouse Florida reporters in the days that followed expressed gratitude that despite their losses, they were alive. The grim search for bodies reminded them it could have been much worse.
Sometimes the small stories put everything into perspective. For days people followed the saga of Tahane, the wolf that escaped from Seacrest Wolf Preserve south of Chipley. Tahane was eventually found in the Ebro area where it was reunited with its owners.
In Panama City, two dogs stranded aboard a house boat were rescued by a dedicated searcher on a kayak.
And then there was the story about the long-lost wallet, hidden in a Port St. Joeapartment room wall way back in the 1960s. It contained a receipt for red snapper, a picture of a pretty girl … and a condom.
The lights slowly came back on. Telephones began ringing again. TV screens lit up. Everywhere, even now, are the smells and sounds of reconstruction taking place. People are putting their lives back together.
But not for everyone.
The death count has not been finalized, but the Florida Division of Emergency Management says 43 people died in the Sunshine State. Ten people died in other states, and if you add the number of people killed in Central America, before Michael was even a cyclone, the death toll comes to 63.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation says the damage total stands at $4.5 billion in Florida. Add damages outside of Florida and the total could exceed $15 billion, according to Steve Evans with Artemis, which deals in “catastrophe bonds, insurance-linked securities and risk transfer intelligence.”
Michael was the strongest hurricane to strike Northwest Florida in modern history, the third-most-intense hurricane to make landfall in the continental U.S. in terms of central pressure, and the fourth-strongest by sustained winds.
A new year, a new season
“The 2018 (hurricane) season fell within NOAA’s predicted ranges in our pre-season outlook issued in late May. However, the overall season was more active than predicted in the updated outlook issued in early August. Warmer Atlantic Ocean temperatures, a stronger west-African monsoon and the fact that El Nino did not form in time to suppress the season helped to enhance storm development.”
― Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
Already, computers are humming to life. Algorithms are beginning to flow, and probabilities await computation.
Overhead, the cool, dispassionate eyes of weather satellites watch the oceans for sea surface temperatures, prevailing winds and moist air masses.
Will the Atlantic run hot this year? Will the season be defanged by El Nino? Will Saharan dust knock down marauding tropical disturbances?
Nobody knows for sure, but there is one thing everybody can agree on:
Nobody wants to become the next victim of a hurricane like Michael.
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