In Mexico Beach, Fla., Lance Erwin is one of the lucky ones. His house is still standing. He stayed in his home during Hurricane Michael, several blocks from the beach, in a part of his house that he calls his “safe room.”
“The garage door was shaking,” he says. “I knew the roof was gone at that point because everything was shaking. I thought, ‘Just hang in there.’ I had faith everything was going to be OK.”
Florida has some of the nation’s toughest building codes. But in the Panhandle, you wouldn’t know it. The rules are looser there — allowing construction that couldn’t stand up to Michael’s 155 mph winds.
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