Rescue operations continue in Florida following Hurricane Michael on Wednesday, October 10, which ravaged homes and cities.
Hurricane Michael, which left behind scenes of desolation in Florida, killed at least 17 people, and officials feared that the toll would increase further as rescue operations were long overdue.
Downgraded Friday night in a single storm, Michael was moving away from the US coast Friday night to Saturday, but the count of his victims continued to grow.
Michael crashed Wednesday on the Florida coast, carrying winds at 250 km / h.
"War zone"
The small seaside resort of Mexico Beach is "devastated," Florida governor Rick Scott told AFP describing a "war zone . "
"It's like a bomb exploded," he added. "We strive to keep everyone alive, provide medical assistance to those who need it, and bring food and water here . "
In the small town, dozens of houses, shops, restaurants on the waterfront were completely washed away hundreds of meters inland, or reduced to heaps of debris.
Provisional human balance
Friday evening, the discovery of the body of an old man in Mexico Beach has brought to 8 the number of deaths made in Florida by this hurricane, the most violent that has hit the northwest of the state since the start of surveys in 1851.
Michael has also touched other states going up the coast. It killed five people in Virginia, three in North Carolina - a state hit hard by Hurricane Florence last month - and one in Georgia, a girl killed when a garage awning landed on her house, authorities said. .
But the Emergency Management Agency (Fema) warned that there was still a risk of finding victims. "I expect the balance sheet to increase today and tomorrow as we move through the debris," Fema boss Brock Long told CNN.
US President Donald Trump has announced that he will travel to Florida and neighboring Georgia, also hit hard, earlier this week.
No electricity or telephony network
Rescuers were hard at work in Mexico Beach, where military and civilian helicopters were passing by. They have installed in this coastal community, which has a thousand residents a year, an emergency communication tower, the mobile phone network is out of service.
In Panama City, the situation was also worrying: houses totally destroyed, torn roofs, boats built against each other, trees strewn on the ground.
The current was still not restored Friday for over a million homes in the affected states.Everything, it is only floods, trees felled, roads closed and debris.
Social networks flock to images of places submerged by the rising waters. In Virginia, emergency services reported that 1,200 routes had been closed.