Many of the houses in Mexico Beach were old cinder-block Florida cottages and ranch-style bungalows built on sand. They could never pass Florida code requirements in 2019. New homes must be elevated 18 feet above sea level and be able to withstand 120 mph winds, Mayor Cathey tells me, as we amble over to a tent that serves as the dining room of Mango Marley’s. It is one of the few eateries that have reopened in the form of a food truck. It still serves up its “Floribbean” food but on a limited menu as the owners attempt to rebuild.

“Step into my office,” Cathey laughs as we take a seat at an empty table.

It’s a miracle he can even crack jokes, I think, as he begins telling me about the town he has called home for 67 years.

Storms are a fact of life in this part of the country, but Cathey had never seen one like Michael. He waited too long to evacuate and then weathered the hurricane hunkered down at home with his wife and youngest son. He was lucky he didn’t lose his house, but the day after the storm was unimaginably difficult. He and his son made their way toward the family’s hardware store and saw nothing but destruction. The business he had built for the last 40 years was gone. The city he had led for so many years was gone.

October 11 was the toughest day of his life, he says. He remembers his walk that day was in silence. There were no words.

This was a sleepy beach and fishing town of mostly white folks, many of whom had money and hailed from cities like Atlanta and Birmingham. Some came to visit, fell in love and stayed. People like Peggy and Tom Wood, who in 1975 ended up buying the Driftwood Inn. Others were more recent transplants. Jacques and Bella Sebastiao left Brunswick, Georgia, and purchased their home in Mexico Beach just two months before the storm. They were mesmerized by the color of the water and wanted to live somewhere where they did not have to cross a road to get to the beach. Now they spend their days at an outdoor table perched in front of their FEMA trailer, not knowing how long it will take before they can start construction of a new home.

Still, others had childhood connections to this city. Atlantan Ellen Lail’s parents owned a sprawling cinder block beach house on 15th Street, the kind that had room to sleep children, grandchildren, siblings, aunts, and uncles. In 2007, Lail and her husband Mike bought their own place, just two houses from the water.

Yes, the Gulf is gorgeous here, but people also came for another crucial reason: family, fellowship, and that old-worldly feel so often absent from our hectic lives. This was the kind of place where you could leave the front door unlocked and your flip-flops and tote bags unattended for hours on the beach. You could walk down to the Shell Shack and buy shrimp, grouper, and cobia or whatever else the fishermen had just hauled in.

Every time I mention that I have not visited here since the early 1980s, I get the same response: Little has changed since then.

“What we had here was unique, so charming,” the mayor tells me. “Old Florida. That’s gone forever.”