Then came Michael. 

On Oct. 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael landed at Mexico Beach, Florida, and swept across the Gulf Coast westward through Panama City. The brunt of the damage from the massive storm stopped short of the highway bridge that divides the tourist-hub Panama City Beach from its underlooked neighbor, Panama City proper.

Along with leveled buildings, downed electric poles and wide scale debris, the storm also brought psychological trauma upon Panhandle residents who, more than eight months after the hurricane, are still recovering physically and mentally. 

“People here, whenever we hear a heavy wind, we see the rain, now we get the PTSD, the anxiety, the depression,” Dossie said. “I’m seeing a psychiatrist about it. I have no problems telling everybody about it.”

Since Hurricane Michael, many residents of the Florida Panhandle – including Dossie – have dealt with mental health issues related to the storm. 

As many as four in 10 survivors can experience a mental or behavioral disorder after a natural disaster, according to the American Psychological Society.

A study on mental health from Bay District Schools reported a shortage of mental health resources in Bay County was made worse with the increased need for mental health services after Hurricane Michael. 

Project Hope is a prevention-oriented crisis counseling program in Panama City funded by FEMA and meant to help individuals affected by Hurricane Michael. It offers free mental health services for community members struggling with the mental toll of the hurricane aftermath. 

Mental health experts warn that trauma peaks seven to 10 months after a storm, putting Panama City currently in that range. 

As the storm rattled the walls of his house, Dossie realized that this storm would hit harder than the many that came before it. Slowly, the confident excitement he had in the calm moments before the storm hit turned into fear and panic as the severity of his situation became as clear as the reality that he had no choice but to stand pat.  

Dossie waited out the storm from inside the bathroom of his home as Michael reshaped the landscape outside. 

“Hurricane Michael came to me, literally knocking on my door, tearing my windows down,” Dossie said.

Then he remembered the pine tree looming above his home as it always had, but now, waiting to drop like a hammer at the unpredictable discretion of Category 5 wind speeds.

Dossie outlasted the storm, however, his property was less fortunate. 

It took 26 days for him to regain power, and the neighboring structures on his lot – including the house he grew up in, just feet away from the house he currently resides in – were severely damaged by the storm. 

“At that moment, I got all afraid and stuff like that, shaking because I realized I’m a house-and-a-half away from what could have possibly been my death,” Dossie said.

After Hurricane Michael, the roots beneath the pine tree slowly began to pull above the ground and brought a lean and wobble to the tree’s ordinarily upright posture. When the rain falls, the soil around its roots softens and the risk of it toppling through Dossie’s already damaged house increases. 

On top of the headache of coordinating the recovery of his home damaged by the storm, Dossie said he spends each night with an added fear that the timber will come crashing through what is left of his house while he sleeps.  

“I appear to cope, but I have my moments,” Dossie said. “When the wind’s blowing, I’m peeping out my window at that tree.” 

Inflated prices for tree removal services – one of several forms of price gouging reported by residents in the area – in addition to a lack of insurance and resources from FEMA combined to prevent Dossie from cutting down the tree threatening his home.

The mental toll that accompanied the long grind of recovery presented itself throughout Bay County in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.

“We’ve had a lot of suicides,” Bay County Sheriff’s Office Financial Crimes Investigator Dennis Rozier said. “We’ve had a rise in suicides here which is pretty tragic in itself. Hasn’t been good.”

More than nine months later, Panama City is faced with an uncertain timeline and path towards full recovery. 

“You’re looking at a year or two from this point, probably,” said Trey Hutt, president of Hutt Insurance Agency in Panama City and a resource for locals navigating the recovery process. “Full recovery of the community might be three years, five years, 10 years. We really don’t know.”

The towering, unstable tree still teeters outside of Dossie’s home as he, and the rest of the city, endures the elongated recovery process post-Michael. 

“I look at it like I have a mental injury, not a mental illness,” Dossie said. “With an injury, just like if you injure your foot, you go to the doctor. You get your foot healed. And then you know you’re back at it again. So then I get my mental psyche healed and I’m back good to go.”

News 21 reporters Katie Hunger and Sarah Beth Guevara contributed to this report.

Jake Goodrick

Jake Goodrick is a recent graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, earning a master’s degree in sports journalism. Before Cronkite, he graduated summa cum laude from Cleveland State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. As a reporter for Cronkite News and Arizona PBS, Goodrick covered the Phoenix Suns, ASU men’s basketball and the Chicago White Sox. His work can be found in The Arizona Republic, Indian Country Today, The Navajo Times and MLB.com.

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While many Americans spend their evenings in their living rooms, absorbing the warm glow of television or enjoying the company of others, Ingram doesn’t have that option.

The 66-year-old hasn’t had the option since Hurricane Michael nine months ago.

Since the storm, his living room is now the space beside the road that runs through the heart of Lynn Haven Mobile Home Park, reclined into the tattered furniture that remains there. 

On Oct. 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael destroyed Ingram’s trailer when the storm rolled in off the Gulf Coast and forever changed the Florida Panhandle. In fact, only a few of the 47 trailers in the Lynn Haven Mobile Home Park are still in anything close to livable condition. 

“After Michael, we told them we can’t repair anything, we can’t do anything,” said Sher Hay, the property manager of Lynn Haven Mobile Home Park. “None of this is fixable.”

The Panama City area is facing a housing crisis that has put the community in an economic bind. While the area depends on tourism for a significant portion of its economy, locals throughout the area said that wages earned waiting tables, working at hotels and running tourism excursions is hardly enough to afford inflated rental prices that are partially caused by the need to house visitors to the beach while the rest of the city recovers.

Ingram was once a fisherman. The nearby coast offered plenty of work for him at that time and the tourist-centric Panama City Beach guaranteed a high demand for his services. Now, that same tourism industry is contributing to a housing crisis that resulted in Ingram, because of his age, facing homelessness for the first time in his life.

He relies on disability checks to cover his living expenses. But with housing in the Panama City area at a premium due to inflated rental rates, he said he is no longer able to afford housing on his income. 

“There’s plenty of places to live, but they want to charge what they can charge,” Ingram said.

Albert Byrd, 19, lives in the same trailer park as Ingram. His home withstood the storm, and despite being damaged significantly, it is one of a handful of remaining units that is still occupied. 

“Now, everything is pretty much gone,” Byrd said. “Everything I’ve ever known, everything I’ve ever loved.”

Byrd was born and raised in Lynn Haven, in the same trailer he now shares with his mother. But not for long. Byrd and Ingram, along with all residents still living in the trailer park, are being evicted. 

They have until August of this year to move out or they will face eviction, according to Hay, the mobile home park’s property manager. 

“People were very angry, and I understand,” Hay said. “But, you don’t have to be angry with me about it. You need to be angry with whatever supreme being you believe in, or Mother Nature, or whatever. Because I didn’t create Michael, I promise.”

Since the storm ripped through Lynn Haven in October, Hay said that most of the park has been without water, sewage and electricity. She refunded deposits to all tenants after the storm on the condition that they would have to move out. Hay said she hasn’t collected any rent since the storm hit in October 2018.

Despite the lack of facilities and request for them to vacate, several tenants stayed in the park. Squatters and looters flocked to the area as well, according to Hay. 

She, along with her family, runs Al Harlen Rentals and own several other rental properties throughout the area. With no insurance and no choice to rebuild,  the Lynn Haven Mobile Home Park is currently for sale, Hay said.  

Upon eviction, tenants will be thrust into a seller’s market, she said. 

“It is high,” Hay said. “Most people’s rents are very, very high right now and there is no low-income housing to speak of, because most of that was low-end built, also, and Michael just tore it to shreds.”

Hay recognized that it is unlikely that anyone displaced from the mobile home park will be able to find comparable housing in the area for close to the same price they paid before the storm. 

“I know it’s very difficult to find housing right now,” Hay said. 

But is it possible?

“Probably not,” Hay added. “No.”

Nine months after the storm, Ingram remains homeless. Without a home — or the means to find another one — he spends his nights outside of the trailer where he once lived, nestled in to a faded sofa, surrounded by downed trees and dilapidated homes. Holding his un-ashed cigarette, he said he thinks about how life used to be. 

Jake Goodrick

Jake Goodrick is a recent graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, earning a master’s degree in sports journalism. Before Cronkite, he graduated summa cum laude from Cleveland State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. As a reporter for Cronkite News and Arizona PBS, Goodrick covered the Phoenix Suns, ASU men’s basketball and the Chicago White Sox. His work can be found in The Arizona Republic, Indian Country Today, The Navajo Times and MLB.com.

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“This is not us just because of Hurricane Michael,” Summers said. “We’ve never lived in the house by ourselves. We’ve always been helping people.”

Summers and her husband, Sam, built their house 20 years ago on the Florida Panhandle, located 25 minutes outside of Panama City. When Hurricane Michael hit their community in October, the Summers and their 7-year old daughter, Gabby, instantly opened their property to more than 50 people who were displaced by the Category 5 storm, something they’ve done many times before.

Now, eight months and counting since Michael hit, the number of residents fluctuates weekly as families save enough money to move out or new families move in. When News21 visited in early June, 22 people were temporary residents.

When people arrive at what Summers refers to as a “tent community,” most have few possessions on them, if they have any at all. Summers noted that some even lack basic toiletries such as a toothbrush.

“Our goal is to help them get on their feet [and] save their money, so when the time does come, whenever they get the housing available, they have the money to start over,” Summers said. “It’s tedious, but it’s worth it.”

Residents are housed in tents, which Summers admits is not ideal, but she ensures each tent is equipped with air conditioning, electricity and real mattresses in an attempt to try and provide a  sense of normalcy. Residents are granted full access to the main house to watch television or cool off, and every night there is a home cooked meal, a combined effort between the temporary residents and Summers that adds a true community feel.

The Summers do all this without charging a penny. While a few local churches donate food and supplies to help Summers provide for her community, the rest of the costs and sacrifices fall on Shelly and her husband.

“We have spent a lot of money on this, but that’s OK, and we would do it all over again,” Summers said.

The Summers attribute their “strict community morals, values and standards” to their individual upbringings.

Although residents are not required to pay rent, maintaining a community with this many people and over 100 animals — mostly rabbits — requires assistance, which is why Shelly asks her residents to give back by helping around the property.

“Whether it’s pick up trash or vacuum the house or help put the donations up, do something. You have to do something. And for the most part everybody pretty much does chip in,” she said.

Shelly has just three rules for residents: no drinking, no drugs and no drama. Failure to comply with those three will result in eviction from the tent community.

“My neighbors will tell you we’re very quiet. [They] didn’t even know we were doing this until the news started showing up,” Summers said.

Amanda Bohn said she and her husband and their three children — two sons and one daughter — arrived in March, and they will continue to stay until they can afford to put themselves in a home.

Bohn did not want to ask for help when she and her family got evicted from their home after Hurricane Michael, but she decided that living on the Summers’ property was better than living in an RV on a vacant lot.

“Shelly is a blessing for what she is doing,” Bohn said. “A lot of us would probably be sleeping under a bridge or under some trees somewhere.”

In just a few months, Shelly has had several success stories, including a family who recently relocated to West Virginia. But as people continue to struggle and recover from the hurricane and its aftermath, the Summers family will welcome them into their home, no matter the cost.

“The ultimate goal is to get them in their own permanent housing,” Summers said. “But until that’s available, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.”

Peter Nicieja

Peter Nicieja is a senior at DePauw University pursuing a degree in music with a second major in communication. Nicieja has held various leadership positions with student media organizations, including programming director for DePauw’s radio station, WGRE, news editor for The DePauw newspaper, and producer for D3TV, the campus TV station.  Nicieja also has a background in filmmaking and graphic design.

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