Looking back on lessons learned 5 years after Hurricane Michael

AccuWeather

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.

Transcript

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]

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