LYNN HAVEN, Fla. — Mayor Margo Anderson drove through the neighborhoods of her small bayside city on Sunday to deliver some unwelcome news: The electric power knocked out nearly a week ago by Hurricane Michael might not be restored for two months.

Behind the wheel of a black golf cart, she made the rounds as shellshocked neighbors emerged from houses with busted windows and walls and front porches, the damage from the punches of fast wind, rushing waters and toppled trees.

“Just about every tree is down,” said Ms. Anderson, a fifth-generation citizen who was elected mayor of Lynn Haven, Fla., three years ago. “The power lines are destroyed. The transformers are destroyed. The power grid is destroyed. We have to start over.”

That is the dire reality in the necklace of rural towns and coastal communities across northwest Florida that Michael gutted. Residents already reeling from the storm’s unexpectedly brutal winds now face the prospect of spending weeks relying on generators burning expensive fuel, or depending on aid from emergency workers.