“Governor Jeb Bush just left here for Tallahassee. I spoke with him and he said the whole state from the Alabama/Florida line through Destin is just a mess,” Ron Hensel, manager of Sowell Aviation at Panama City Airport (PFN), told AIN on September 17. The governor and his brother, President George W. Bush, toured the point of landfall and extended path of Hurricane Ivan between Mobile, Ala., and Panama City, Fla., by helicopter that day.
Panama City escaped the brunt of Ivan’s 140-mph winds but received a number of severe thunderstorms. “Our main problem along the coast outside the eye-wall path was the embedded tornados and the surge damage that followed,” said Hensel. “We were very lucky. We had minimal wind damage or flooding…We had some roof damage to our administration building and a general aviation hangar but we’re up and running again. We’ve got plenty of fuel for the diverting Gulf Coast traffic and for the most part we’re out of harm’s way.”
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