Nearly five years ago, Hurricane Michael became the first Category 5 storm to hit the United States in 25 years. It left a trail of destruction in its wake, and my community of Panama City — located in the Florida Panhandle — was hit especially hard. Since then, working together as neighbors and citizens, we’ve made significant progress in key recovery areas, including rebuilding key and vital infrastructure, enhancing quality of life, developing our downtown, and attracting new businesses across a mix of industries. However, one of our most important recovery efforts lies within our tree canopy restoration — an often overlooked but vital area of disaster recovery and prevention.
When Hurricane Michael uprooted nearly 80 percent of Panama City’s trees — approximately a million trees, generating 5.7 million cubic yards of debris within the city — it created serious challenges. Not only did we lose the beautiful canopy from 100-year-old oak trees, but the vital function of the trees was lost, the first of which was the absorption of groundwater. The loss of so many trees significantly increased the risk of flooding in our community, where we now experience flooding in areas that haven’t typically flooded in the 114-year history of the city. The second function lost from the lack of trees is shade. Trees serve to mitigate the urban heat island effect, where an entire city is warmed by concrete being heated by the sun. These increased temperatures not only result in uncomfortably hot weather but can also lead to other extreme weather events like wildfires. Since the storm, Panama City has experienced increased flooding whenever thunderstorms roll through, in addition to wildfires that consumed over 40,000 acres last year – both due in part to the damaged tree canopy and loss of trees.
Trees also act as a filter to naturally clean our water and provide shade throughout the city, offering relief from the sun on a hot day and ensuring residents and visitors can spend extended time outside. Having access to an outdoor space is vital to high quality of life. Families and children have safe, cool spaces to play in, and everyone can experience the benefits of the outdoors without needing to leave city limits.
Panama City isn’t alone in facing these challenges. Nationwide, it is reported that cities are seeing a loss of 36 million trees per year in their urban tree canopies, due in part to the damage caused by natural disasters like hurricanes. Having seen these problems of urban tree loss firsthand in Panama City, we have engaged in a comprehensive effect to re-tree Panama City communities which may assist others to help solve their own tree canopy issues.
Through our ReTreePC initiative, which was launched shortly after Hurricane Michael, Panama City has been working to rebuild our urban canopy one tree at a time through targeted plantings and tree giveaways. To date, our efforts have resulted in tens of thousands of trees planted on public and private property and, far from being random, these planting efforts are happening strategically for the future of the city.
For example, while palm trees are the image native species of a tropical and sunny Florida, they are not native to northwest Florida. Instead, we’re planting oak, magnolia, cypress, maple elm and tupelo trees that we know will succeed in the environment we have. The damage from Hurricane Michael showed us that we can’t plant just any tree and expect it to solve our problems — we need to plant the right trees in the right places.
Another key element of our success has been the implementation of iTree, a digital tree program that lets us track trees on public property and identify where we should be replanting them. We’re in our second year using iTree, and it’s been invaluable in helping us be more strategic in our efforts. As a city, we’ve set a goal of planting 100,000 new trees. Thanks to the combined efforts of these programs and the enthusiasm of our citizens, we’re steadily making progress towards that goal funded by both grants and the generous donations made to the City’s non-profit organization.
We know here in Panama City that we are better together and that we will rebuild Panama City into the premier city in the panhandle of Florida. In doing so, we are not only rebuilding our infrastructure, but are working to restore and protect our trees to serve generations to come. This Arbor Day, I encourage other communities to learn from our experience and make an investment in their own tree canopies. Trees are a key element to helping communities thrive, allowing everyone an opportunity to have a role in making their city greener and stronger.