Williams takes care of four kids and his 80-year-old grandfather. I went to Biloxi after Katrina, and it was bad,” he says, “but this is on another level.” “This is the worst disaster I’ve ever been to. This past Sunday, he was waiting in line under the hot sun for hours in hopes of finding meals from a fish 'n’ chips food truck that was donating food. Jonathan Williams, age 33, is a resident of Callaway.
But they’re not in a position to give much - the storm caused their home's roof to collapse too. Michelle and Kenny Richardson, friends of Bauer's who live nearby, have dropped by to deliver whatever supplies they can spare. “We’re the lowest of the low,” Bauer says. Folks accustomed to living paycheck-to-paycheck find themselves surviving hand-to-mouth. Lines for hot food served at roadside stands set up by charities and volunteers dot the main streets, and the lines for meals stretch far back into still-flooded strip-mall parking lots. Mario Ariza In the city’s working-class, eastern sections, relief efforts have been undertaken mostly by neighbors, churches, and volunteers. About one in five residents lives below the poverty line, according to U.S. Panama City’s poverty is extraordinarily high and rose by almost 18 percent in just four years. “They got the direct hit of the eye wall, and they got the stronger wind coming off of the water,” meteorologist Bryan Norcross explains. Much attention has been focused on the ten to 15 feet of high storm surge that all but obliterated the sleepy resort town of Mexico Beach, but the storm also battered eastern portions of Panama City, which happen to be some of its poorest. Little discussed in the aftermath of Michael is the soaring poverty rate in Panama City and the suffering of its residents following the Category 4 storm’s landfall. “I didn’t have the means to prepare,” she says. The National Guard visited and donated two military meals, but that’s not enough. In the five days since the storm struck, she’s been hungry. Evacuation was an economic impossibility, so in the rush before the hurricane hit, she used her limited means to provide for those she cared about most - her seven dogs. An administrative assistant in her early 50s who gets paid by the hour, she met the storm with no cash on hand, no extra food, no batteries, no flashlights. Hurricane Michael ripped a hole in the roof of Amy Bauer’s tiny apartment in Springfield, a poor Panama City neighborhood.
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