MEXICO BEACH, Fla. _ Peggy Wood kept sitting up in bed.
She snatched a legal pad and added to a scattered list of things she used to own.
She imagined she was at her old desk in the Driftwood Inn, and jotted what she saw. Six glaze brushes, an embroidery machine, dressmaker's scissors. A Nikon camera. Lights for that camera, and a backpack. Perfume she spritzed on before going out to shoot photos.
Each item was a chain link in a new insurance filing after Hurricane Michael ruined the Inn she and her family spent four decades building.
The Woods had received a little more than $2 million in insurance payments by January, mostly from flood policies. They still hoped for at least another $1 million from wind coverage but did not know how much it would cost to rebuild the sprawling motel and its outbuildings, 24 units in all.
$3 million? $10 million?
Would they have enough?
This was the post-storm math they had to master if they wanted to own a motel again.
The old Driftwood slumped across the street, a rotting husk Peggy could see from her camper. She and her husband, Tom, couldn't tear it down until they finished with the insurance and secured a city permit.
But they were eager to accelerate the pace, three months since the storm, and decided to set a meeting with a builder. They hoped he would give them a solid estimate, and in doing so, an assurance they could afford to rebuild.
Peggy and Tom, both 78, wanted to re-create the Driftwood. Perhaps it wasn't the shrewdest financial decision, they said, but they dreamed of leaving the Inn to their family.
And just as important, they believed, Mexico Beach needed them.
