Free Republic

MEXICO BEACH, Fla. — As they built their dream house last year on the shimmering sands of the Gulf of Mexico, Russell King and his nephew, Dr. Lebron Lackey, painstakingly documented every detail of the elevated construction, from the 40-foot pilings buried into the ground to the types of screws drilled into the walls. They picked gleaming paints from a palette of shore colors, chose salt-tolerant species to plant in the beach dunes and christened their creation the Sand Palace of Mexico Beach. They also installed an outdoor security camera. Its video footage became the only view of their property...

Saturday morning my wife and I took off from Fort Walton Beach on our motorcycles to go to Panama City and check on my sister and her family and my wife's cousin and her family. We had not heard much info from either of them since Wednesday, when Hurricane Michael hit, just that they were 'safe' and everybody was alive, thanks be to God Almighty. On the way, down Highway 98, we saw convoys of people, possibly church groups, in pick-ups full of bottled water and other such necessities. We saw many, many work trucks for tree services from as...

PANAMA CITY, Fla. The devastation inflicted by Hurricane Michael came into focus Thursday with rows upon rows of homes found smashed to pieces, and rescue crews began making their way into the stricken areas in hopes of accounting for hundreds of people who may have defied evacuation orders. At least two deaths were blamed on Michael, the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in over 50 years, and it wasn't done yet: Though reduced to a tropical storm, it brought flash flooding to North Carolina and Virginia, soaking areas still recovering from Hurricane Florence. Under a perfectly clear...