Hurricane Michael and how Bay County's two former Albertsons stores fared

As many of you may know, a terrible hurricane by the name of Michael slammed into the Eastern Florida Panhandle just 8 miles east of Panama City over Tyndall AFB. The hurricane was rapidly intensifying upon landfall, and hurricane hunters reported top sustained winds of 155 mph with a central pressure of 919 mb at landfall! Unless you're a meteorologist, that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Michael was in fact the 3rd most intense hurricane to ever hit the United States, and it hit the area where I grew up in the Panama City, Lynn Haven, and Callaway areas of Florida's Panhandle

https://flic.kr/p/QxHHzj

https://flic.kr/p/2bykk9b

Uh, I digress. As many of you may know I am interested in retail, especially one particular grocery chain that I have been strangely fascinated with for years, Albertsons! I so, so, so wish I had grabbed my camera back in 2005 and had snapped some photos of the Panama City Albertsons back then. Little did a know, but my favorite grocery store was going to close forever and leave Panama City at the end of 2006. In early 2008 I relocated to Gainesville, FL, a town which at that time had two Albertsons stores. I had gone to shop at the Archer Road Albertsons 2 or 3 times, but never really felt connected to it enough to shop at it. In August 2008 Publix bought 49 of Florida's Albertsons stores, and the Butler Plaza location was one of those unlucky stores to get the ax.

in 2009 I relocated to the north side of Gainesville near 13th and 39th Ave. Of course I had what seemed like beaucoudles of Publix locations to shop at and I wass delighted to have an Albertsons just a mile away from my new home, Albertsons #4314. That store served as a common shopping place for me (mostly to get get baked goods and meat). That particular Albertsons never felt or smelled really clean, but I still liked the nostalgic feel of the store and continued to patronize the place until it closed in October of 2011. By 2012 my closest Albertsons was in Altamonte Springs, FL. (near Orlando) So the only chances I had to shop at Albertsons was when I made trips to Orlando. As many may know by now that store, along with 2 others in Florida had a short two year stint as Safeway, until just recently Publix bought all three Safeway stores and just in the last few days have reopened them as Publix.

My fascination for Albertsons has not let up, despite them being entirely removed from the state of Florida. In mid 2015 while I was browsing the web for Albertsons photos I came across something called "The Albertsons Florida Blog". Hmmm. How interesting, I thought! So I checked out the blog website and said to myself "This is exactly what I've been looking for- a website entirely devoted to my favorite grocery chain!" I have been a loyal follower of the blog since 2015 and have learned a lot about Albertsons history in my home state, and have been intrigued by the many interesting stories about the many stores covered on the blog.

This is my first time really blogging, but honestly I've been forced to do this because of an idiotic change with flickr's account policy (which really sucks by the way), and will eventually drive many away from this photo sharing venue.

Without further ado, here are my 2 video uploads for my findings of the Panama City area's two former Albertsons store locations affected by Hurricane Michael. In the future I was mostly post photos on my blog, but every once in a while I may just throw a video in for fun.

Thanks for stopping by!!