The Destruction from Hurricane Michael

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Gerald Herbert

People walk amidst destruction on the main street of Mexico Beach, Fla., in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael inThursday, Oct. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Caleb Pendleton, Op-Ed Editor

Hurricane Michael formed on October 7th, 2018 and is recorded to be the third most intense hurricane on the Atlantic coast to hit land, putting it behind the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Hurricane Michael is also recorded to have the fastest maximum wind speed, going all the way up to 155 mph, making it the fastest since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. As of October 17th there have been 26 deaths from this hurricane. The Hurricane has caused an estimated 8 billion dollars of damage, about 16,000 single resident homes were damaged as well as 4,000 of them destroyed. The strong winds have also left 200,000 people in Cuba with no power during this catastrophe.

With cell service down, making it impossible for people to call for help, cell services such as Verizon, T-Mobile and  AT&T have deployed mobile phone towers so more people can call emergency services and be rescued. More than 2,000 people are being held in 15 shelters across Florida and the Florida Education Board also stated that many school campuses are still functioning as shelters as the storm goes on.

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott said,  “We spent all night doing search and rescue, we’re going to spend all day doing search and rescue. We’ve got a massive flow of people going down to coast to try to be helpful.” Scott has called 3,500 people from the national guard to help during this rescue as well as 1,000 rescue workers from around the United States. Scott explained to CBS news that it is “very woody” where the storm hit the hardest, so residents will be expecting massive amounts of trees fallen over and destroyed.

As of October 18th, 2018 there are no plans for what is going to happen. President Trump is currently lending a helping hand to the victims of Hurricane Michael and will have to look into repairs in the future but for now its still “Search, and Rescue.” People are still being rescued and you can donate to help Hurricane Michael through many organizations. You can go to Google.com and look up Hurricane Michael to donate through Google.