From finding ways to communicate when cell service and power are both out to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on recovery, we take a look back at Hurricane Michael's lasting impacts in Bay County, Florida.
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00:00 It was five years ago that Hurricane
00:02 Michael directly slammed into Bay
00:03 County in Florida's Panhandle and
00:05 Hurricane Michael was a Category 5
00:07 storm with 160 mile per hour winds,
00:08 making it the fourth strongest US
00:10 hurricane landfall in terms of wind speed.
00:12 Bob Micah is county manager of Bay
00:14 County and Bob joins us now.
00:16 So Bob, thanks for making time for us here.
00:19 Glad to do it. Thank you very much.
00:21 Well, it's important to look back
00:23 because we can always learn what to
00:25 do in the future during events like these.
00:27 So there's a lot of things that
00:29 we can learn in the past.
00:31 So what comes to mind when you
00:33 first think of Hurricane Michael?
00:35 What do you recall from that day in 2018?
00:38 Well, I I think beyond the other
00:40 devastation that the community
00:42 experienced was, you know,
00:43 the sheer breakdown in traditional
00:45 methods of communication.
00:46 We lost virtually every method
00:48 of communication available to us.
00:50 Became very apparent how dependent
00:52 people are on their smart devices,
00:54 their cell phones, their phones,
00:56 their computers,
00:57 their computers,
00:58 their smart devices, their cell phones,
01:00 their laptops to receive information.
01:02 The importance of having.
01:03 A battery operating radios so that
01:06 that was literally the only the only
01:09 thing up and running technology wise,
01:11 where we could still disseminate information.
01:14 We were back to.
01:16 Literally driving up and down the
01:18 streets with loudspeakers informing
01:20 the public or public information
01:22 officer here, Valerie sale,
01:24 came up with the idea of using a
01:27 banner planes for messaging to get
01:29 messages out to individuals about
01:31 contacting FEMA, which again was
01:33 problematic because cell phone
01:34 service was interrupted using the
01:36 banners behind planes typically
01:37 used for advertising.
01:39 It's a great idea.
01:40 Really, really solid physically
01:41 beyond communication issues.
01:42 How bad was the damage in Bay County?
01:46 I was it was staggering.
01:50 You know the amount of trees that were lost.
01:53 You know, not only as a coastal community,
01:56 but as a community that traditionally
01:57 had a lot of freestanding pine forest.
02:00 So if you came here today and it was
02:03 the first time you had been here,
02:05 let's say in the last 10 years,
02:07 the landscape is traditionally
02:09 it's it's changed dramatically.
02:11 That's resulted in other challenges
02:13 with our floodplain and areas that
02:15 we haven't traditionally seen flooding.
02:17 We now do because that that
02:19 tree canopy is no longer there.
02:21 What was the financial impact on
02:23 the county and did federal agencies
02:25 like the state of Iowa aid and FEMA help?
02:28 Yes, so currently we are in excess of
02:32 of $600 million in expenses that
02:35 majority of that roughly 300 plus
02:37 million of that was our debris removal
02:40 operation and then the balance of that
02:43 is via public assistance programs.
02:46 Dollars that we are we've received.
02:49 Either directly or that are still
02:52 pending in Tallahassee for public
02:54 assistance repairs to things such as
02:56 roadways we lost public facilities we lost.
02:58 So I think we'll be close to by the
03:01 time we're done and everything's said
03:03 and done between the county and our
03:05 seven municipalities will probably
03:06 somewhere North of $1 billion.
03:08 Is my estimate.
03:09 Wow, that's amazing in in one county.
03:12 They're really hard hit.
03:13 Obviously final question for you.
03:14 What lessons from Michael have you
03:16 taken with you to apply to this
03:18 hurricane season and others in the future?
03:20 With Michael, we saw very low
03:23 precipitation now and I think
03:24 as a result of the storm you have
03:26 people that didn't leave for Michael.
03:28 They will tell you today the next
03:30 time they're leaving they're going
03:32 to leave even if it's tropical storm.
03:34 And you know the next time it happens,
03:36 this is why you need to hear
03:37 warnings when we issue evacuations.
03:38 Bob bike at County manager from
03:41 Bay County, FL Bob.
03:42 Thanks so much for sharing and for
03:43 giving us some of your time here today.
03:46 You're welcome again.
03:47 Thank you very much for the opportunity.
03:49 We appreciate it.
03:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]