CNN journalist Brooke Baldwin struggled to describe what she was seeing from a helicopter flying over Mexico Beach on Thursday. “It’s gone,” she said. “It’s gone.”

Scenes of devastation from the Florida town have become the visual marker of Hurricane Michael, the third-strongest hurricane to ever hit the United States. With wind speeds of up to 155 miles per hour and a nine-foot storm surge, Michael essentially flattened Mexico Beach, leaving behind mountains of trash and two-by-fours. As of Sunday, search-and-rescue teams were still combing through the rubble there, and at least 46 people remained unaccounted for. Mexico Beach’s entire population is only about 1,200; around 280 people stayed to ride out the storm.

There is still hope for the 46 missing. Only one death has been confirmed in the town so far, leaving officials to believe that many who decided to stay may have fled at the last minute as Michael rapidly intensified. Still, when President Donald Trump visits Mexico Beach on Monday, he will find an American community effectively destroyed—similar to what Hurricane Katrina did to parts of New Orleans over a decade ago. And like New Orleans after Katrina, the future of Mexico Beach now rests on Americans’ resolve to rebuild what was lost.

But do most Americans know what was lost in the first place?

View of the damage caused by Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach on October 13, three days after Hurricane Michael hit the area. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

Lindsey Yeargin doesn’t think they do, and she worries that the public’s unfamiliarity with Mexico Beach might prevent a large-scale rebuilding of the town she’s spent summers and holidays in since she was a child. “Anytime I tell anyone I’m going to Mexico Beach, people are like, where? You’re going to Mexico?” The town isn’t widely known in part because it’s small, Yeargin said; but it’s also because residents and longtime visitors have intentionally tried to keep Mexico Beach a bit of a secret from the world. “We want it to remain unspoiled.”

