Tomorrow will be one month since the town I've called home for 47 years was utterly destroyed by Hurricane Michael. I loved this place before the hurricane ripped it to pieces a month ago, and I love it even more now.
No matter how big Panama City gets, this place is still a small town. I can't go anywhere without seeing at least one person I know. Sometimes that gets old, but it has sure been a comfort in the last month. People here are welcoming. Maybe that's because we have two big military bases, or maybe it is just our way. You can move here at any age and within months you're one of us. You don't have to be BORN here to be FROM here.
We may be shattered and torn but the heart of this town is still beating and the things that make this community a wonderful place to live are alive and well: they don't exist in bricks and mortar. What makes this place the town we all love is its people, and we are down but in no way are we out.
That's not to say things aren't grim right now. People are struggling. Struggling with sudden unemployment, sudden homelessness, never ending lists of tasks and repairs to do or arrange, anxiety as we wait to see what our insurance companies are going to do, and the depressing and ever present sight of debris piles and collapsed buildings that are a constant reminder of our new, more desperate reality.
Just because a month has gone by and the initial trauma is over, don't think for a second that our town has suddenly transformed back to the Panama City of October 9, 2018 as if nothing ever happened.
Don't believe the callous disregard shown by the lack of national news coverage. NOTHING is back to normal here.
Nothing.
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