The toll of Hurricane Michael raises to 17: "We were surprised by the damage"

The number of victims of Hurricane Michael climbed to 17 on Friday as search and rescue teams continue to search the wreckage of once-bustling coastal cities, such as Mexico Beach and Panama City Beach, four days ago. after the storm.

Mexico Beach was largely decimated when Michael touched down Wednesday as a Category 4 storm with sustained maximum winds of 155 mph.

"There are people who have died, we do not have a count, but we are working to identify them," Joseph Zahralban, Miami Fire Chief, head of the team, told The Associated Press. search and rescue in Mexico Beach.

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A body was found Friday in the rubble of a town house, but teams planned to iron the debris on Saturday.

Of the 17 dead in the storm, eight were in Florida. Four people died in Gadsden County and three in Jackson County, in addition to one person found so far in Mexico Beach, located in Bay County. The director of the Jackson County Emergency Management Agency, Rodney Andreasen, said that one of Jackson County's victims had occurred when a man had been hit by a tree in Alford.

FEMA Administrator Brock Long warned Friday that the death toll was likely to increase.

"I hope we will not see this climb dramatically, but … we are still not in the hardest hit areas," he said.

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Ray Jadallah, from Miami-Dade County Task Force 1 in Florida, spent the last two days – 20 hours a day – digging through debris in Mexico Beach. He said that they ignored the intact structures and were painfully going into collapsed buildings, first making noise to alert anyone who might be inside that they were not looters, then sending a dead dog in search of bodies.

Until now, they found a single corpse, a relative relief for Jadallah, who did the same job after Hurricane Katrina when they found "many casualties". The destruction in Bay County was largely caused by the wind, unlike the Katrina floods.

"We were surprised by the material damage," Jadallah said after arriving in Mexico Beach after Hurricane Michael. "Literally overnight, he went from category 1 or 2 to category 4, almost to limit 5. This type of destruction that we have not seen since I was a kid is Hurricane Andrew. "The damage is enough, take the time for them to get back on their feet."

Hurricane Andrew killed 44 people in South Florida when he landed near Homestead on August 24, 1992.

About 285 people challenged mandatory evacuation orders in Mexico Beach. Police carried out two sweeps of the city on Wednesday morning and recorded the names of all the people planning to stay, although officials said it was impossible to know who could have left during or immediately after the storm. .

"We do not have a building." According to what I understood, the water tide washed away from its foundation, "said the chief of police from Mexico Beach, Anthony Kelly, at ABC News, Friday. "The officers, I finally reported to all of them today, two days after the fact. (…) They are not just my officers, the people I work with, they are my family.

The neighboring city of Panama has been affected in the same way as Mexico Beach. Many survivors said that they had collapsed in their homes because of winds blowing at 150 km / h.

"I decided to stay because my family had decided to evacuate, but the pets had to stay here," said John Pandullo, a resident of Panama City. "They did not have a place to go, so I wanted to protect them or be there for them in case something like that happened – and it does."

Pandullo came out of the storm in a cupboard with her dog, Rosie, as the house literally collapsed around him. The roof has collapsed and the living room and garage of his parents' house no longer exist.

"It was so crazy and it's so bad," he said. "The dog was right here and she would not leave my side and she would not move, she was shaking extremely badly, and the winds were blowing in and the rain was falling on us and I waited for more." 39, one hour.

"I managed to make a phone call at the height of the storm and I was able to talk with my parents at that time," continued Pandullo. "And my mother was praying with Jesus on the phone about it all the time you know – it likes you, let him live."

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Five people, including a firefighter, died in Virginia, the floods having caused considerable damage in an area already hit hard by Hurricane Florence last month. Three people died in North Carolina, all victims of falling trees. A girl was killed in Georgia when debris was blown into the roof of her grandparents' house.

There were still 1.3 million customers without electricity in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama and Virginia at 5 am Saturday.

Rob Marciano, Will Carr, William Gretsky and Acacia Nunes of ABC News contributed to this story.