'Complete, Total Devastation' in Hurricane Michael's Wake

At least two people are now confirmed dead in one of the strongest storms on record to hit the mainland US—and some communities hit by Hurricane Michael are now unrecognizable. A man in Greensboro, Florida, was killed by a falling tree, authorities say, and an 11-year-girl was killed in Lake Seminole, Georgia, when metal debris hit her family's trailer, Travis Brooks, director of Seminole County's Emergency Management Agency, tells ABC News. He describes the situation in the county as "complete and total devastation." More:

• Homes submerged. In Mexico Beach, the Florida Panhandle town where Michael made landfall Wednesday, homes were submerged to their roofs by the storm surge and the fate of an estimated 280 residents who refused to evacuate is unclear, reports Reuters.

• Downgraded but dangerous. The National Hurricane Center says Michael, which was downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm overnight, is continuing to weaken but still packs strong winds. It is forecast to move across eastern Georgia, the Carolinas, and southeast Virginia before moving back over the Atlantic Ocean late Thursday or early Friday.
• Town "littered with pieces of houses." Mexico Beach resident Patricia Mulligan tells the New York Times that she rode out the storm safely with her family, but the town is wrecked. "You can't drive a car anywhere, you can't do anything because it's littered with houses, pieces of houses," she says. Mulligan says her brother's beach condo and neighboring units are simply "not there."
• Records broken. The storm is the strongest on record to hit the Panhandle—and the strongest October storm ever to hit the US. Michael Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, tells NBC that Michael was a "history-making, very devastating storm and one that we're never going to forget." By barometric pressure, it was the third-strongest storm ever to make landfall in the US.

• Interstate closed. The Florida Highway Patrol has closed an 80-mile stretch of Interstate 10 west of Tallahassee, the major route across northern Florida, until debris can be cleared, the AP reports. A spokesman says the closure is "due to extremely hazardous conditions."
• "Like a war zone." The Tampa Bay Times reports that Panama City, about 25 miles away from Mexico Beach, looked "like a war zone" after the storm roared through, leaving buildings without roofs and streets clogged with debris.
• Power could be off for weeks. The storm left an estimated 700,000 people in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia without power, and it could be weeks before it is restored to people in the hardest-hit areas, the Guardian reports. "They need to be prepared, not only in Florida but Georgia as well, to see the power off for multiple weeks," FEMA Administrator Brock Long says.

(More Hurricane Michael stories.)