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Bubba Harmon gunned the front-end loader through downstream power lines to the Caterpillar before he could find a way through.
The city clerk followed behind, driving a wrecker fire truck he did not know how to drive.
Hurricane Michael's winds still stung and chunks of houses blocked roads Harmon, 63, was the only way to get to the people in the condos was by brute force.
"Anybody there!" They yelled their way through the streets of Mexico Beach.
Harmon's back hurt like hell from an old injury, but what did it matter after the ocean?
"We ended up pulling seven people out of the second floor," said Harmon, a burly retired real estate business owner with a charming southern drawl that turns McDonald's into MACDonald's. "The Caterpillar was the only way."
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A week after Hurricane Michael destroyed 85 percent of the homes in the 1,200-resident town of Mexico Beach, the streets were clear and new power poles were raised in a ballet of synchronization. Four people were dead, two dudes out of mangled homes just on Tuesday, but there was no one else.
As residents struggled back to empty beachfront slabs where once stood, Harmon opened his 160-acre estate, putting green and Grecian-style home to become a staging ground for relief efforts. Trucks dug deep muddy ruts in the grass, landed helicopters and continued with a persistent thwack, thwack, thwack and celebrity chef Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen served pork sausage and chicken jambalaya with corn and peas.
The dizzying scene matched the state of the town – the dubstruck by the devastation and the thought of what happens next to the quiet fishing village with no stop light, big chain restaurants or towering condos.
Coveted land: 'The vultures are already swooping in'
Mexico Beach has gotten the line for so many years of development that it's going to push Goofy Golf and high-rise hotels to Florida's Forgotten Coast.
Buffered by Tyndall Air Force Base to the west and the old paper mill town of Port St. Joe to the east, city leaders and the community stalwarts like Harmon kept its shoreline for the generations that enjoyed a bit of Old Florida away from the Jell-O -shot Spring Break Circus of Panama City Beach.
But those concrete-block homes were built on the sand that were obliterated by Michael, to be able to rebuild to Florida code, able to withstand 120-mph winds and 18-feet above sea level, said Harmon, who owns a real estate business in town now run by his children.
Like the owners of the grandfathered-in trailers and homes in the Keys that were lost to 2017's Irma Hurricane, some Mexico Beach residents may find it unaffordable to rebuild.
One Realtor told full-time resident Susan Seagraves, 65, she started getting calls from developers less than a following Michael's landfall.
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"The vultures are already swooping in, asking what kind of lots they can buy," Seagraves said. "Everyone wants a piece of the pie."
Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida's panhandle on Wednesday, Oct. 10 around 2 p.m. as a 155-mph cyclone – just 2 mph below a category 5 and with the third strongest wind speeds to hit the Sunshine State in recorded history.
Only the Hurricane Labor Day of 1935 and 1992's Hurricane Andrew had higher winds. In the Continental U.S., Michael was the fourth strongest storm after the Labor Day storm, Andrew and Camille's 1969's, which made landfall in Christian Pass, Miss., As a 175-mph category 5.
Michael's 45mph gain from a Category 2 hurricane to a high-end Cat 4 in 24 hours is not unique – 2004's Hurricane Charley leapt 40mph in the hours before it made landfall on Florida's southwest coast to Cat 4. But it was a shock to forecasters and Panhandle residents who went to bed with Cat 3 and awoke to a monster.
Why Mexico Beach was so defenseless
Michael Pushed Ahead at Mexico Beach, an area especially vulnerable to a saltwater massacre.
There's a 160-mile fetch of the shallow shelf off Mexico Beach for storm surge to build. It is also a piece of the coast of the sea and has a slightly different shape. Gulf of Mexico, said Hal Needham, founder and president of Marine Weather and Climate Consulting.
"It really focuses the water. It was a great set up for a massive storm surge there, "Needham said. "If Mexico Beach was a tiny island in the ocean surge would have a go-ahead and go around it with a bowl shape it's a focused push."
On Wednesday, Caron Spencer, 64, of Tallahassee saw what remained of her 1974-built townhome on the Gulf glistening for the first time after Michael.
Her tiled downstairs floor was intact, but that was it.
Next door, Gene Strickland, of Woodstock, Ga., Was looking at a similar blank slab, seeing for the first time what remained.
One street west, Janice and Charles Anderson, of Thomasville, Ga., Had just pulled up to where their two-story home once stood.
"Is this your cooker?" 76-year-old Charles asked, holding up a red crock pot that was scattered in debris behind the lone corner wall that remained of their home.
"This is our home, but we are here," said Janice, 75, pointing to the Gulf and the other behind her home.
Residents wonder: Is it even worth rebuilding?
Standing with nary a piece of siding is a stronghold facing the Gulf flaccid. High above the fray on lofty pillars, Strickland said "despicable" because it was built in front of everyone.
Its owners built the property in 2017 with steel cables and 40-foot pillars designed to withstand Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes.
Will Strickland rebuild in its shadow?
"It all depends on the codes," he said. "They could kill this town, or let it come back."
Added Spencer: "The water is still as beautiful as ever. I'm sure the sunset is well. "
Mayor Cathey estimates just 25 percent of the residential properties in Mexico Beach are homesteaded, meaning the large majority of people do not consider it their full-time residence.
Mexico Beach's Old Florida status quo. People who have other primary homes can not find a home in the city. But people who have other homes can also have the money to build the new codes.
Seagraves has lived in Mexico Beach full time for eight years. Sitting at a picnic table outside the waterlogged yellow condo on Tuesday, the constant beeping of construction trucks being broken down by the occasional shock of shattering glass.
She may not find her 1991 mint condition Volvo named Irene, which was parked in her carport and is now likely in the channel. At 65, she's not sure she wants to rebuild. Not only will it be a lengthy process, it will be different.
Harmon is concerned about the future of the town.
"Nobody wants high rises," said Harmon, who was born in Port St. Joe 20 years after the milling drought for paper and went to school on a baseball scholarship at the University of West Alabama.
Panhandle home – a good ol 'boy' s ode to Greek decor that includes white pillars, swarovski crystal candlesticks and dark wood kitchen cabinets that tower like a church organ.
After the storm, he hopes for his showers in his triple shower-head. He's set out for those who need them. So far, he's taken baths with boiled pool water.
"There's no commercial lot right now to put a chain restaurant on," Harmon said. "Maybe Sonic could go on two lots."
Will beach towns become condo canyons?
Former Jacksonville State University professor and historian Harvey Jackson, who wrote the book "The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera," said there is precedence for the death of a small town and canyons after a storm.
Hurricane Frederick in 1979 was followed by more, more tourist-oriented, development in the Alabama towns of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, Jackson said.
"Frederick Jackson," said Jackson, "who lives in Seagrove Beach, about 20 miles west of Panama City Beach and grew up in the United States. the Panhandle. "It's an evolution that has been going on for many years, but Mexico Beach was one of the last holdouts."
In his book, Jackson describes the Redneck Riviera as a place built by southerners who did not want to go to the beach. It was a place where government and law enforcement was light. A place to drink a few beers, fish and still make it to Church on Sunday, Jackson said.
"Mexico Beach was the last concentration of that," he said.
In 1946, a group of businessmen bought 1,850 acres that would become Mexico Beach. One of their son, Charlie Parker, moved to the area in 1949 and began development.
Mayor Al Cathey arrived in Mexico Beach in 1953 with his family, which is related by marriage to Parker. The house of his father built still stands from the city hall.
About 280 people stayed on Mexico Beach during Michael, including Cathey and Harmon.
After the storm, when chaos reigned, Harmon worked with Cathey and Harris County, Ga. Sheriff Mike Jolley, who has a house in Mexico Beach, to muddle together some sort of authority.
"I said, 'If anyone's got a problem with it, come to me, they can not fire me," Harmon said.
"And I said, 'And they can not vote me out,'" said Jolley, standing with Harmon near his debris-littered pool as a loudly readied helicopter for takeoff in the field behind.
For Cathey, water, food. The long term is a question mark.
"For me, the charm of our town has been washed away," he said. "How we'll come back will be the biggest story."
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