This column is dedicated to Mexico Beach, Fla., a place that many people across America had never heard of until early October.
But that has all changed.
When Hurricane Michael roared ashore, Mexico Beach became ground zero for one of the most devastating hurricanes to ever hit Florida.
In last month’s column, I included Mexico Beach and the Driftwood Inn in particular as a potential bucket list destination on the Gulf Coast. My wife and I have visited this “old Florida” no-stoplight town several times in recent years, and unless you jumped in your car last month and headed south, you missed it.
For the most part, Mexico Beach is gone.
Michael made sure of that.
It was almost two days before television crews could make their way to Mexico Beach. With Highway 98 crumbled and buckled, as if gurgled up from an earthquake, anyone getting there did so by helicopter.
Mexico Beach has now become a household name.
We are heartbroken for this seaside village and for all of the families who lived there and owned small mom-and-pop businesses.
By its own choosing, the town had failed to keep up with the rest of Florida’s fast pace. Highway 98 will get you to Panama City some 24 miles to the west, and Port St. Joe 12 miles to the east.
Cameras attached to overhead drones have supplied all of us with the devastation that this Gulf Coast area has suffered. The destruction is so unprecedented that it makes me wonder when or even if this little jewel of a town will ever recover.
I hope it does, but how?
I first heard of Mexico Beach when lifelong friend Bill Jenkins moved there from Elizabethtown a number of years ago.
Jenkins was a football star at UK in the mid-1960s and was team captain under Coach Charlie Bradshaw.
“We stumbled onto Mexico Beach while just looking around,” he said. “My wife, Kathy, and I just liked the laid-back lifestyle here.”
Before Michael roared in, Jenkins pointed out that the only thing going on there were the beautiful daily sunsets.
“Look around,” he said. “Not much going on but the beauty. And with only two four-way stop signs in the whole town, traffic is not a problem.”
But that was then, and this is now. Not even those stop signs are now standing. Neither is much of the Driftwood Inn.
Last week, after deciding to leave Mexico Beach with his wife and two of his daughter’s dogs just hours before the almost-Category 5 hurricane made landfall, Jenkins felt lucky to find a motel room, some 100 miles away, in Tallahassee.
“We’re not sure what we’re going to do,” he said in regard to permanently returning to Mexico Beach. “There is no infrastructure left. Streets, all of the utilities, all of the businesses have been wiped away. I’m not sure our little beach town will ever recover, for sure not the place it was.”
Before the hurricane, Mexico Beach had a full-service marina with fishing charters, as well as a handful of lodging opportunities and condo rentals. In this town of 1,200 residents, an Ace Hardware and Subway eatery were the only chain operations.
Mexico Beach first appeared on a Florida map in 1946, and for decades the small village remained a well-kept secret, slowly attracting residents and a few tourists.
“It’s just been the last few years that people have been discovering what those of us who live here have known for years,” Jenkins said.
Unfortunately for anyone who didn’t make it to Mexico Beach before Michael did, they will probably never get to see one of the “old Florida” towns that was destroyed Oct 9.
Get up, get out, and get going!
– Gary West’s column runs monthly in the Daily News. He can be reached by emailing west1488@twc.com.
