The difference is startling

“Mom, you are driving right into the storm.”

My son was half a world away but was tracking the hurricane as I was driving home from a McDonald’s Women Owners Network conference in Atlanta. I was hoping to make it home before the hurricane made landfall.

He was right.

I pulled over in Eufaula and napped on the couch of Hilton Garden Inn until a room was available.

I will never forget driving into Panama City the next day. It was a paralyzing feeling.
The devastation was so complete, that I missed turns that I had taken thousands of times. I got lost driving to my own home. I picked my way through downed power poles, transformers, trees, debris and my neighbors’ personal possessions.

That first night we were totally shut off from the world. When you remove the light and sound of civilization, the difference is startling.

I think many on the outside assumed no news was good news. That was a dangerous assumption.
The sound of helicopters and sirens filled in the normal quiet spaces.

Our first objective was to account for our people and make sure they were safe. Social media was our life line for making those connections.

Thankfully everyone was safe and we began doing what we could to get them back on their feet.

A week after the storm the McRig, the McDonald’s semi-truck version of a restaurant on wheels, was in the parking lot of the Panama City Mall giving out free and hot food to first responders and members of the community. A lot of people hadn’t had a hot meal in days and it gave people a chance to come together.

A hot meal is important and so is a job and paycheck.

Our son picked up $10,000 in cash from friends in Tampa and drove it to Panama City so we could pay our folks in cash for the first four days they worked.

All of the amazing people who came to work, went home to their own personal destruction, loss, and damage.

I married into the McDonald’s franchise business 35 years ago. My father-in-law opened up the first McDonald’s in Bay County in 1962.

This community is our home and bringing our town back to life is our goal. We lost half of our employees after the hurricane.

People have just hit the wall of tolerance.

There is limited affordable housing.

Transportation is a challenge.

We have more business than we have people.

It will take some time before our community is in a position to support the needs of the number of people required to do the work.

People ask if we are okay, and honestly, I don’t know.

There is an uneasy and anxious ache inside. Sleep does not come easily. It’s hard to turn your mind off from all this.

My cure so far has been to work, be busy, restore our business, restore the lives of others, and restore our hometown. It is the only time I am not consumed with grief.

We are humbled by the destruction and the aid we have received.

What mattered so much a few months ago seems like foolishness today.