




"If we lose only one life, to me that's going to be a miracle," Cathey said.


A framed portrait of Jesus was propped Sunday facing out of the window of Diana Hughes' home in Mexico Beach. She rode out the hurricane on the couch huddled with her dog and her ex-husband.

The storm peeled off a small section of the roof and a few inches of water got in the single-story house. But the pickup truck wouldn't start after getting swamped with water. Hughes still had her home, but no way to leave it.

"We need a generator, but we just lack transportation," Hughes said on her front porch. "We've got food and we've got water. But we've got to keep ice in the refrigerator so the food won't spoil. You can only eat so many crackers."

President Donald Trump plans to visit Florida and Georgia on Monday to see the damage.


"There are a lot of inland areas, some of these poor rural counties to the north of there. These counties took a devastating hit," Sen. Marco Rubio said on NBC's "Meet The Press."

"And we are talking about poor people, many of them are older, miles from each other, isolated in many cases from roads, including some dirt roads that are cut off right now. We haven't been able to reach those people in a number of days."


"We're just trying to help some other people who may not be able to get out of their driveways for a couple of days," Braxton said. "There was a girl that had trapped horses, horses that were down, and horses that really needed vet care that could not get there. There's been animals killed. People lost their cows."

Some victims stranded by the storm managed to summon relief by using logs to spell out "HELP" on the ground, officials in Bay County, which includes Mexico Beach, said in a Facebook post. Official said someone from another county was using an aerial mapping app, noticed the distress message and contacted authorities.



The base is home to some of the nation's most advanced fighter jets, and Nelson said some hangars were damaged severely. But he gave no information on how many planes were on the base during the storm or how many were damaged.


Steve Lonigan was outside his home, talking with neighbor Jim Ostman, when a loud cracking sound made both men jump. It was just a small wooden block shifting in the sand beneath the weight of the front end of Lonigan's camper trailer.

"All this stuff is just dangerous," Ostman said, glancing at the destruction all around. "It's so unstable."

Lonigan and his wife returned Sunday after evacuating to Georgia. Seawater surged into his home, leaving a soggy mess of mud and leaves, even though the house stands 12 feet (3.7 meters) above ground on concrete blocks.


"We've got a lot more left than other people," he said. "We were able to sleep in the bedroom last night."

In hard-hit Panama City, pastor John Blount held Sunday services at St. Andrew United Methodist Church outdoors, in front of a wall demolished by the storm. Afterward, the church held a large cookout for the storm-weary.

More roads were becoming passable as crews cleared trees and power lines, but traffic lights remained out and there were long lines at the few open gas stations.

Florida officials evacuated nearly 3,000 inmates from two hurricane-damaged prisons — the Gulf Correctional Institution and Annex and Calhoun Correctional Institution. They had damage to the roof and the infrastructure critical for security, authorities said. No inmates or staff members were injured.

