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When Pat Lowery, 71, retired from teaching at Port St. Joe High School, she stayed in the "sleepy little town" where no one locked up the door neither the car.
But after 46 years, Lowery is coming out.
"My house will be on sale as soon as it is repaired," she said, queuing for a free barbecue with her husband a few days after Hurricane Michael knocked out the Florida Panhandle. "At our age, we can not handle that. We want to travel and have fun. "
She is not alone. People on the forgotten coast, who are struggling with heavy losses, must make the same decision: do they have to cope with the difficult and endless recovery or leave a home that may not be the same? According to official estimates, more than 4,000 houses were destroyed and another 16,000 were damaged.
The future of cities like his, immortalized as the city where the constitution of the state was signed in 1838, depends on it.
Kaye Haddock, real estate broker at Beach Properties in Port St. Joe for 16 years, said she received her first call from a billionaire investor two days after the storm.
"I was standing here, looking at this place, and he called and said," You are my daughter. Find me the offers, "she said.
She remembered the last crash when the market was in free fall and the only investors were those with the most pockets.
Over the last decade, the lure of "Mayberry on the Beach" has gradually changed: a place without restaurant chains, where you can drive your car to the sandy beaches and make a bonfire under the starry sky.
Just before the storm, she said, the community had begun to take flight. The city was renovating its historic theater and organizing its first music festival. Most of his clients were families who were looking to move full-time or purchase the vacation home of their dreams.
Now, Haddock said: "Investors will eat this area." She hopes calls will continue to come from "opportunistic investors" in the hope of capitalizing on people like Lowery, who can not or do not want to stay here.
"They will benefit economically or otherwise," said Matt Peevy, Real Estate Broker at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. He said he expected the second wave to be "hurricane-induced amnesia".
Scott Remington, a Pensacola-based lawyer who was representing Panhandle residents after the 2010 oil spill, said he expected a resurgence of economic activity in the near term as the region rebuilds, followed by A demand for new homes or rebuilt homes, especially if they are built stronger building codes.
"What the experience has taught us here, is that some people believe that after such a storm, we are not expected for another storm before long," he said. . "Many people will think that's where to invest."
Of course, the riparian owners represent only a portion of the population of the Panhandle Center, now scattered to the east and west. Inland areas are mainly rural areas dotted with cotton and groundnut farms. Crop losses are assured by the government, so it is unlikely that farmers' houses will receive the same kind of attention from investors. Many streets and roads are still blocked by fallen trees and affected residents still arrive there.
As the damage is still fresh, experts say it is far too early to determine how many people will leave the area. But Remington said he did not expect such a large population displacement as Hurricane Andrew did in 1992, forcing thousands of people to move south from Dade into the underdeveloped west of Broward.
"This storm has not entered the population centers," he said.
Tyndall Air Force Base, with the exception of 11,000 people, is one of the main drivers of the region's economy. The base was heavily damaged and at a press conference on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesmen said Tyndall's future was not known. The entire base was evacuated and many service personnel left not only the Panhandle but also the state itself.
"I've already had a hurricane and recovery from a hurricane, but not so much," Brig said. General John Allen, according to the Air Force Times. "You can imagine what kind of effort awaits us."
Allen, Director of Civil Engineers of the Air Force, compares with the impact of Hurricane Katrina at Kessler Air Force Base in Mississippi; a complete recovery took almost five years.
According to the Times, Brig. General Ed Thomas said the Pentagon was still looking for what to do with the displaced staff.
"We will have to make some serious decisions about whether families will return to this base," he said.
Haddock, the broker, thinks it will be in five years before the economy of the region rebounds. She and her husband own Krazy Fish Grille, one of the most popular places in town. Their employees scattered in Alabama and Mississippi, far from their damaged homes. The parking in front of the restaurant is an impromptu kitchen, the largest in the area. Dozens of people line up under the hot sun for food – pulled pork, cornbread, cookies and gatorade.
Peevy, the broker, is more optimistic. It sets the economic recovery time to one year – six months if they can get enough pictures of undamaged areas on the Internet to attract tourists.
A week after the storm, heavy trucks are reconnecting the islands, mostly populated with luxurious holiday homes. In a few days, the road will look the same as ever, but we do not know when and if the community that serves it has it. "Investors will introduce themselves and we will eat," Haddock said.
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