Hurricane Michael
In October 2018, we decided to take a trip to Panama City for the kids Fall Break. Great idea… but Mother Nature didn’t agree.
Jace was 10. Raylee was a whopping almost 9 months old. We brought reinforcements. My sister in law came and my parents made the trip.
We got there around Oct 7th or so. We knew the weather had a “chance” of doing at least something. But at the time a Tropical Storm was the worst case scenario. On the second day the chance of a Tropical Storm increased. We thought ok. It may be a day or 2 of rain. On the next days it went from bad (Tropical Storm) and turned into a full blown worst case Category 5 hurricane! During the first day or two my wife and sister in law said “We aren’t leaving!”. By the last day that we stayed, PCB was a ghost town. No gas around, restaurants closed.
Thankfully my wife and sister in law wised up and said let’s go home. We got home Oct 9th. On Oct 10th Michael touched land and ripped pure chaos across the panhandle.
Hurricane Michael
In October 2018, we decided to take a trip to Panama City Beach for the kids’ fall break.
Great idea…
Mother Nature didn’t agree.
Jace was 10. Raylee was a whopping almost 9 months old. And this time, we brought reinforcements. My sister-in-law came along, and my parents made the trip too.
We got there around October 7th or so.
We knew there was some weather out there, but at the time, the worst-case scenario looked like maybe a tropical storm.
No big deal.
A day or two of rain. We’d find something else to do and make the best of it.
But the forecast kept changing.
On the second day, the chances of a tropical storm increased.
Then it got worse.
And worse.
What started as maybe a tropical storm quickly turned into something none of us expected—a full-blown hurricane headed straight toward the Florida Panhandle.
During those first couple of days, my wife and sister-in-law were pretty firm about it.
“We aren’t leaving.”
I’m not sure exactly when their survival instincts finally kicked in, but thankfully, they did.
Because by our last day there, Panama City Beach was becoming a ghost town.
Restaurants were closing.
Gas was getting hard to find.
People were packing up and getting out.
The fun little fall-break beach trip suddenly didn’t feel much like a vacation anymore.
Finally, my wife and sister-in-law said the words I had been waiting to hear:
“Let’s go home.”
So we packed everything up, loaded the kids, and headed back to Tennessee.
We made it home October 9th.
The next day, October 10, Hurricane Michael made landfall.
A Category 5 hurricane.
And it ripped pure chaos across the Florida Panhandle.
The place we had just been sitting with our family only a day earlier was being torn apart.
Homes were destroyed. Businesses disappeared. Entire communities were changed in a matter of hours.
Looking back now, there’s something strange about remembering that trip.
We were on vacation.
The kids were with us. My parents were there. My sister-in-law was there. We were doing what families do at the beach.
And somewhere out in the Gulf, something was building.
Something bigger than any of us realized.
We were lucky.
We got to pack our bags, load up the car, and drive away.
A lot of people didn’t have that luxury. For them, Michael wasn’t a story about a vacation cut short.
It was the storm that changed everything.
I’ve always loved the Gulf.
The calm mornings. The sunsets. The clear water. The wildlife. The sound of the waves when everything else gets quiet.
But trips like this remind you of something.
The same water that can bring you peace deserves your respect.
Because sometimes the tide brings you a story.
And sometimes…
it tells you it’s time to go home.