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PANAMA CITY, Florida – Nicholas Sines was last heard in his small apartment in Panama City more than a week ago. While Hurricane Michael was heading to the Florida Panhandle, his mother, Kristine Wright, urged his son to go out before it was too late. "I begged her," she said. "If you like, go to a shelter."
"I'm staying here," he told him.
Six days after landing, Mrs. Wright still has not heard of him. She has been on Facebook several times in recent days to ask for help.
"My son is still missing," she said in a message. "Today is day 6 without my son telling me," she wrote Tuesday afternoon.
Mr. Sines, 22, is one of dozens of people still missing since Michael crossed over Florida and surrounding states last week, destroying power lines and cell towers and leaving a series of wrecks still searched by rescue teams.
In the moments that preceded their loss of communication with friends or relatives, many missing persons seemed to be in a desperate situation. Some said their walls were collapsing or that they regretted staying for the storm. Others said that Category 4 hurricane winds were coming off their roofs or cracking the roads in front of them.
But in a storm zone that stretches for hundreds of miles and thousands of structures and ruined streets, the news of their fate has been slow. Cellular service remains irregular, rescue teams are progressing slowly and appalling rumors are common.
The death toll has risen to at least 29 on Tuesday, including 19 in Florida, including at least 15 in Bay County; many believe that the balance sheet will certainly increase further. In places like Mexico Beach, where authorities have reported that nearly 46 people have disappeared, families and rescuers are worried that more bodies will be buried in fields of split wood and twisted metal, or just as likely to be dragged into the Gulf by the waters. the storm surge that swept the city.
This is why families have often been forced to post desperate requests on Facebook or try to reach emergency officials by phone or by going to offices and command posts. Although new news is coming out every day, especially as electricity and telephone service are gradually being restored throughout the Panhandle, many are still waiting.
"I do not sleep, I do not eat," said Mrs. Wright, who tries every day to make about 60 km from her home in Freeport, to go to the square of Northeast Avenue in Panama City, where her son was last seen. "As his mother, my heart hurts."
In an interview on Tuesday, she described Mr. Sines – he measures a little over six feet, she said – and his voice broke.
"It's my son," she finally said.
The authorities insist that they have not given up on finding people alive, whether in a building in ruins or simply not found.
A search and rescue team from Ohio worked Tuesday in Mexico Beach, as well as rescue workers from the Florida cities of Sarasota and Miami. A helicopter was flying at low altitude. The Florida Department of Health, meanwhile, offered an online form for reports of missing, trapped or in need of help.
"We're going for as long as we can," said Dr. Jay M. Radtke, a medical examiner in the Bay County area. "In a storm like this with a huge push, it's still possible that some people were washed away. But we're not going to just say it happened. We will try. "
Dr. Radtke stated that most deaths in Bay County were what he described as "medical" deaths that were not caused by trauma but were nevertheless attributable to the storm, may -because of a missed dialysis or a heart attack related to cleaning the yard. Only three bodies were not identified.
As for the moment when the missing could be declared dead, "I think we are still far away, until we have a better idea of who is really missing," said Dr. Radtke. "More and more people are appearing every day."
They were found when cell phones came back to life with a reinstated service, or by volunteers like Eric Sherred and Erica Rodgers, a young couple who returned to Panama City Beach after being evacuated to North Carolina during storm and decided to help find the missing residents.
The couple, married last month, traveled the Bay County with its Honda Element, the mandarin, armed with a phone covered by AT & T, the provider that everyone seems to want these days. The phone is their virtual command post, a connection with concerned parents, and urgent requests for "wellness checks" on Facebook that send them to their next target.
On Tuesday, they spent most of the afternoon sitting in traffic jams with air conditioning on, then stopped in a storm-stricken area of Panama City, where a teenager had to find himself named Hailey Hicks. The aunt of the girl wanted to know if she was safe.
"It does not seem to be going well," said Rodgers, examining a landscape of ruins just around the corner. "I feel very bad. But they are all bad. "
"We just need a house," Mr. Sherred said softly.
It turned out that not all the houses had been destroyed. Soon, they stopped in a tidy house, after sailed through a fallen tree and passed a warning sign, posted in another house, indicating that looters and vandals would be shot down. Mrs. Hicks, 17, appeared at the open door. Her father had just left to buy supplies, she said. They had been without a phone since the storm.
But they were O.K.
"I feel relieved to know that people are really interested in us," said Hicks, her grandmother at his side. Ms. Rodgers sent a Facebook update on the family situation.
They went next to another house on their list and found a clear driveway and bottles of water that appeared to have been damaged by the storm – signs, they assumed, that this family had also survived. Mrs. Rodgers left a message at the door: "Lisa is worried about you and would like to know that you are O.K. Please contact her as soon as you can and hope that you and your loved ones are all well.
They stopped in a group of mobile homes to search for a person who would live in lot 7. He was not there, but a neighbor said that she had seen him since the afternoon of the morning. storm. They continued to walk in sand-strewn streets dotted with hurricane ornaments: shredded cans of Bud Light, an American flag lodged in a stump of a fallen tree. Six days after the hurricane, a jagged pine smell persisted.
Mr. Sherred is mounted on a roof to help someone to mount a tarpaulin. Before leaving, a woman asked them to pray together.
It was a good day for the couple, even if Mr. Sines' whereabouts remained a question on the eve of twilight – and county curfew -. They had looked for it Monday and had reported that someone from the neighborhood thought they had seen it. But there was no proof – no picture, no SMS and certainly no voice on the phone.
"We are sure about 80% that he is fine," said Ms. Rodgers, who stayed in touch with Ms. Wright about her son. "But she is his mother. Eighty percent is not good enough. "
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