Hurricane Michael (2018)

After strengthening rapidly over the Gulf of Mexico, Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach and Tyndall Air Force Base, southeast of Panama City, Florida, at about 12:30 p.m. CDT on October 10, 2018, as a Category 5 hurricane with 140-knot (161 mph) winds.¹ Hurricane-force winds continued near the center across the central Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia, with hurricane-force gusts as far inland as Albany.¹

Storm surge flooding reached 9 to 14 feet above ground from just southeast of Tyndall Air Force Base to Port St. Joe, highest in Mexico Beach, with 6 to 9 feet along the Big Bend coast from Indian Pass to Keaton Beach and 4 to 6 feet around Panama City.¹ The Tyndall Air Force Base station measured a 121-knot (139 mph) gust before it stopped reporting, Donalsonville, Georgia, measured 100 knots (115 mph) and Marianna, Florida, 89 knots (102 mph).¹

In Mexico Beach, 1,584 of the town's 1,692 buildings were damaged and 809 of them destroyed.¹ Bay County had more than 45,000 structures damaged and more than 1,500 destroyed, and Gulf County had 985 structures destroyed and more than 1,200 with major damage.¹ Inland, Jackson County, Florida, reported 400 buildings destroyed and 600 with major damage, Seminole County, Georgia, reported damage to 99 percent of its homes, and Dougherty County, Georgia, reported 3,000 residential structures damaged, 49 of them destroyed.¹ NHC counts 16 direct deaths, 7 of them in Florida, and 43 indirect deaths in Florida, and cites an NCEI estimate of about $25 billion in US damage, including $18.4 billion in Florida, $4.7 billion in Georgia and $1.1 billion in southeast Alabama.¹