LYNN HAVEN, Fla. -- President Donald Trump marveled at the roofless homes and uprooted trees he saw Monday while touring Florida panhandle communities ravaged last week by Hurricane Michael.
The president later met with farmers in Georgia reeling from the loss of their crops.
Trump toured devastated coastal communities by air, land and foot before he and first lady Melania Trump helped hand out bottled water at a Federal Emergency Management Agency aid distribution center, where the needy in Florida signed up for temporary housing and picked up clothing, diapers, water and other supplies.
"These are massive trees that have been just ripped out of the earth," the president said. "We've seen mostly water. And water can be very damaging, and scary, when you see water rising 14 or 15 feet. But nobody's ever seen anything like this. This is really incredible."
Trump noted that "we're doing more than has probably ever been done," and as he introduced himself to a police officer, said: "In 30 days, you will not recognize this place."
Trump and the first lady arrived earlier Monday at Eglin Air Force Base near Valparaiso, Fla., where they were greeted by Republican Gov. Rick Scott; FEMA Administrator Brock Long; Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.; and other officials.
Throughout the day, the president praised Scott's hurricane response.
"Rick Scott, your governor, has done an incredible job, and all of your people have been amazing -- working with FEMA, working with the first responders, and always law enforcement," Trump said before boarding a helicopter to survey the storm-damaged areas. Trump called Scott, who is running for Senate, "a great governor."
Scott, in turn, said FEMA had granted all his requests and that he'd spoken with Trump "almost every day."
"Every time I've called, he's come through," Scott said.
The severity of the damage worsened significantly as Trump approached Mexico Beach, which was nearly wiped off the map after taking a direct hit from the hurricane and its 155 mph winds last week.
The death toll from Michael's destructive march from Florida through Virginia stood at 17 people, with just one confirmed death in Mexico Beach.
Residents of the Florida panhandle voted strongly for Trump in the 2016 presidential election. The mood at the aid distribution center was lighthearted, as the crowd seemed more interested in selfies with the president than in the bottled water he was offering in the heat and humidity.
A woman carrying a toddler posed for a photo and told Trump that he should return for barbecue. Another woman thanked the first lady for her anti-bullying campaign.
But others in the area were lukewarm about Trump's visit.
Nanya Thompson, 68, of Lynn Haven said the president was trying to project a positive image of himself "because of all the bad publicity he's had."
"If this is just going to be another reality show, I don't think he should come," she added.
The president left Florida on Monday afternoon to fly to Georgia, which didn't get Michael's hurricane-force winds but did get extensive flooding as the storm made its way to the Carolinas and Virginia.
Trump visited a farm near Macon, where fourth-generation farmer Kevin Rentz said he lost 100 percent of his cotton crop. He says he's still digging up peanuts, but the problem is finding a place for them, given the power failures.
Another cotton farmer, Clay Pickle, said he went from his "best crop to no crop in six hours."
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said damage to pecan groves in southwest Georgia will be felt for generations because of the years required to grow new pecan trees. He called the situation "heartbreaking."
'IT'S TORTURE'
More than 190,000 homes and businesses in Florida were without electricity as of Sunday, days after the hurricane hit. That's in addition to about 120,000 in Georgia.
In Panama City, about 5 miles from a neighborhood Trump visited, 57-year-old Sheila Vann had four freezers filled with fish and meat that were starting to spoil.
"You want to see the president?" Vann asked her husband, Joseph. "I ain't got time, unless he wants to help clean up."
Residents also grappled with widespread loss of cellphone service five days after the hurricane slammed into the Florida panhandle. Emergency officials said that because of the loss of cellphone service, residents could be safe but just haven't been able to tell friends or family.
"It's torture," said Joanne Garone Behnke, who last talked to her aunt, Aggie Vicari, 79, of Mexico Beach, right before the storm hit, begging her to leave her cinder-block home.
"I've been on the phone to reporters, to fire chiefs, to heads of task force from Miami, to you name it, I've called them. I've called every hospital," Garone Behnke said Monday, then stopped to look at a text from the fire chief in Mexico Beach.
To her disappointment, it read: "We're still working on it ... we'll keep you posted."
Since Thursday, 17,000 utility workers have arrived to rebuild and repair the crippled infrastructure, and 2,000 cellphone company workers and 18,000 search-and-rescue personnel have arrived in the region, joining 4,000 Florida National Guard troops and multitudes of police and firefighters.
Rescue worker Trevor Lewis and the rest of his six-member squad lent their cellphones to storm victims so that they could contact loved ones for the first time in days. He said he watched them "cry out in joy."
"Just the desperation in the family members' voices that hadn't contacted their loved one for a few days was bad," he said. "Then we get on scene and find their family members and they have no food, no water, no power."
Mexico Beach City Clerk Adrian Welle told local media Sunday that 46 people were unaccounted for. That number had previously been 285, but officials think many left right before the storm hit. Other city officials told reporters that the number of unaccounted-for residents was three.
A Houston-based organization called CrowdSource Rescue that takes calls from worried family members and sends the details to rescue crews on the ground said it has helped find nearly 1,500 people across the region since Michael struck.
Melissa and Rodney Reinhardt spent days wondering whether Rodney's 79-year-old father survived the storm in the Port St. Joe area.
"Our hope was that he evacuated but nobody had heard from him," she said. "It's horrifying not knowing. It's scary. Seeing the pictures on the news makes it even scarier."
Emergency officials checked on him Thursday night and said he was there, but that was all the information they received. Rodney finally went in with a church group on Sunday and picked him up.
"It was a happy ending," Melissa Reinhardt said.
Information for this article was contributed by Russ Bynum, Kelli Kennedy, Brendan Farrington, Gary Fineout, Gerald Herbert, Deb Riechmann and Darlene Superville of The Associated Press; by Felicia Sonmez, Seung Min Kim and Patricia Sullivan of The Washington Post; and by Mark Landler of The New York Times.
A Section on 10/16/2018