Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael was the first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States since Andrew in 1992. With peak winds of 160 mph, Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida and decimated the Florida coast line before moving into Georgia as a Cat 3. Numerous homes were flattened and trees felled over a wide swath of the panhandle with storm surge reaching 14 ft in Mexico Beach.Of the 1,692 buildings in the city, 1,584 were damaged, and 809 among those were destroyed,

With infrastructure destroyed and electric grids down for weeks, residents had no way to access food and water in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Salvation Army teams from around the country mobilized to begin service in Florida and Georgia, multiple Incident Command posts were established across both states. At its peak, the Salvation Army had over 70 mobile feeding units and numerous emotional and spiritual care specialists active in the region. Emergency relief services continued for over a month before The Salvation Army began transitioning into recovery efforts.