The inland Panhandle town of Marianna seemed like a safe haven – until Hurricane Michael turned it upside down

Floridians after Michael: 'The trailer didn't blow away … it's got a tree on it'

Brenda and Clint Canterbury moved to Marianna from south Florida after dealing with the destruction wrought by Hurricane Irma last year. They figured a spot further inland would protect them from the hassles of evacuation, boarding up windows and clearing up broken glass and tree limbs. But now they’d been hit and had to fall back on some trench humor.

“Well, that’s just the luck of the Irish isn’t it,” Clint laughed, as the two sat in lawn chairs in front of a mangled pile of Florida pine branches from flattened trees late Thursday morning.

One of those trees had hit their home. Marianna, as it turned out, was directly in the path of Hurricane Michael, which wrought catastrophic, unprecedented damage to the inland Panhandle community.

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The category 4 storm ripped through the town on Wednesday afternoon, just over 7o miles north from Mexico Beach where the monster cyclone had made landfall at lunchtime before roaring further inland and over the state line into Georgia.

Play Video 1:43 ‘It was terrifying’: Florida residents describe impact of Hurricane Michael – video report

Coastal towns such as Mexico Beach, Panama City and Port St Joe have been largely reduced to rubble or matchsticks. Marianna, by comparison, has been badly damaged, rather than devastated. Some buildings are flattened, some battered badly, missing roofs, others lightly damaged, others more or less intact.

A tree came down on Canterbury’s home at the East Gate Trailer Park with “a big crunch”. They rode out the rest of the storm at their next door neighbor’s, which by pure luck managed to escape unscathed. Every pine in the development toppled in the storm except one, which stood mangled but upright. “At least I didn’t have to worry about the trailer getting blown away … it’s got a tree on it,” Brenda quipped.

The Canterburys said they didn’t evacuate because they didn’t want to deal with the gas shortages, traffic and expensive hotel rooms. Clint, a veteran of the US marines, was also a bit hard-headed, he admitted. “This ain’t shit to me,” he said, rubbing his dog Keaton’s belly as the animal wriggled in the damp grass.

But now they’re stuck. Their car is blocked in by toppled trees and even if they could move it they wouldn’t get far in any direction. All the roads in Marianna, including major highways are blocked by downed utility poles, lines or trees.

It seems incongruous, the Canterburys, laughing and joking, relaxing amid the destruction. “I mean … there’s nothing else to do,” Brenda said. In the wake of the storm it’s actually a beautiful day – and cool by Florida standards. They’re thankful that it isn’t a boiling 94 degrees like it was when they were out of power during Irma. They’ve got a generator – the only one in the complex, it seems – and enough food to last at least a week.

Around downtown, there are portions of roofing everywhere, many downed traffic lights, and utility polls snapped clear in half with power lines running slack at eye level past the entrances to many of the businesses along major highways. Lighter installations have blown away. Some trucks and trailers are blown on their sides.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Damage from Hurricane Michael litters the streets in Marianna, Florida. Photograph: Jamiles Lartey/The Guardian

Out front of the Hibbett Sports store, manager Riky Edwards appeared at a loss. There’s not really a protocol for what to do when your store implodes under hurricane force winds.

“I came down because I got a call from the alarm company,” Edwards said. “I thought there would be some damage but I didn’t expect …” he takes a long pause and looks back at the store “… all that.”

Insulation and soggy ceiling panels coat the merchandise and wires and hoses dangle everywhere overhead.

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Edwards is waiting for his district manager to show up and says they’ll figure out what to do next. Despite the near total damage to the front of the store, there’s plenty of viable merchandise in the back – shoes still sit on wall displays as if nothing happened – and there’s concern about looting.

Like many here, Edwards was caught off guard by the storm’s violence. “We’re Marianna, we’re much further inland. We’ll be good,” he said he remembers thinking before landfall. “Turns out not so much.”

At least he’s only got one place to worry about. His home nearby weathered the storm fine. “It did good. A lot better than my store,” he says with a chuckle. “I’d much rather my house be safe.”

Play Video 0:21 Hurricane Michael: footage shows devastation in Florida's Mexico Beach – video

Businesses are damaged or just shut. Even the outlet of the famously resilient restaurant chain Waffle House is closed.

Robert Forester hadn’t been back to see his house. “I can’t get there any type of way with everything that’s blocked off – I’ve tried,” he told the Guardian.

He works at the Kindel Lanes bowling alley where the roof lifted clear up and collapsed on him and some others who had decided to ride out the storm with the owner, Jeff Kindelspire, in what they thought would be a sturdier building than their homes. The air duct is cracked and hanging as power cables dangle around like spaghetti, but they survived more or less unharmed.

“I’m the maintenance man, but I don’t think I could fix this,” Forester said as he gave an impromptu tour of of the damage. A ceiling tile sloped off its framing and crashed on to the hardwood with a bang. “Watch out for that,” Forester said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marianna, Florida, post-Hurricane Michael. Photograph: Jamiles Lartey/The Guardian

He was behind the bar of the bowling alley when the roof went on Wednesday afternoon. “That right there scared the hell out of me, it’s just a good thing we didn’t get hit by those blocks,” Forester said. There are cinder blocks still fastened to a piece of metal from the roof, splayed around from the wind’s ferocious bending power. No one was seriously hurt but the group retreated to the women’s bathroom for the rest of Michael’s wrath.

Kindelspire told the Guardian on Wednesday before leaving town that he had been in business in Marianna for some 30 years. Forester is on the verge of tears, surveying the damage. “I hope he rebuilds … I guess it will depend on his will to, you know, do this again.”

As at Hibbett Sports, the back of the bowling alley escaped with an almost eerie amount of order. The pins were still arranged at the end of the lanes in perfect triangles of 10.

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A neighbor and alley regular walked in to check on the building; he had heard about the damage. He yelled: “Hey, can we get some cold beers and a couple of lanes over here.” Forester managed a laugh. “Sure, might be a little sticky on the approach,” he says motioning at the debris on the lanes.

The jokes seemed to mix relief that it’s over and could have been worse, with resignation.

Then, standing in the wreckage of Kindel Lanes with Forester and some other locals who have stopped by to see the damage, all of a sudden a cacophony of rings, dings and jingles from pockets – cellphone towers had apparently been restored and push alerts began flowing in.