Current Location: Indian Pass Campground, Port Saint Joe, Florida
Raining, windy, stormy and dark: 62 degrees F at 8PM
We made it to Florida, mid morning on the 9th of February. Stepping out of the MoHo at the Florida Welcome Center on I-10 we were greeted with comfortable temperatures in the 60’s, skies that were almost sunny, and the wondrous smell of Florida velvet air.
The visitor center was quite large, comfortable, with several kiosks for each zone in Florida, and we gathered up some maps and brochures to supplement what we brought with us. We didn’t have far to go to reach Indian Pass Campground.
When I planned this trip, I reserved a site for a week at one of our favorite places, T.H Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. We camped here in the baby MoHo back in 2007, and again with our current MoHo in 2014. We were really looking forward to spending more time in this magical place.
It wasn’t to be, however, since Hurricane Michael devastated the park which is just across the lagoon from Mexico Beach, ground zero for the hurricane. Our reservation was cancelled, our money returned, and we frantically tried to find a location for the open week in early February on the Florida coast. Not an easy task.
We were lucky to get reservations, the last one available due to a cancellation, at Indian Pass Campground, just a few miles beyond St Joe Peninsula, and just across a narrow sound from Saint Vincent Island.
We have lived through horrendous fires out west, and our campground host hadn’t even heard about the fire in Paradise. I wonder how many of us out west have paid much attention to the devastation that happened here in Mexico Beach and all along this part of the Florida coast.
On a more positive note, talking with locals, we have learned that the people are working hard to rebuild and restore their wonderful coastline. The positive attitude of our camp host, who lived through the hurricane in an attic in Port Saint Joe is admirable. Local television ads are almost entirely about rebuilding the community in one way or another. The extensive work here at the campground is ongoing, and some of the campsites were lost, but the park is operating and is still a pleasant place to be in spite of parts that reflect the damage of last fall.
All along the highways and neighborhood roadsides are huge piles of debris, with separate piles for household appliances and metals, and other piles of vegetative debris. Huge black trucks use a giant bucket to pick up the piles and stuff is hauled away on a daily basis. It will take months. Every now and then we see a boat rammed up against a tree, an overturned trailer, or other signs of the power of the wind, and even more so the power of the storm surge.
My heart hurt from the moment we saw the first signs of debris along the roadside, insulation strewn along the highway more than 20 miles inland. I will be writing about our time here more in the next few days, but for now, I want to ask for a moment of silence as you view the photos of the devastation in Mexico Beach where lives, and livelihoods, neighborhoods and businesses, parks and beaches, were all lost.
