Lives are changing, activities are being pursued and courses of action taken. Look to the beach where the long-awaited, much talked about, and expensive beach nourishment project finally got underway. At Port Panama City, work on the south bulkhead has continued at a steady clip, and there are concrete plans now to put in more roadways and railway lines to help Wellstream, Berg Steel Pipe, EB Pipe Coatings and more continue their massive work projects. Even the job market is humming along nicely with unemployment down, unless of course you happen to be with a company whose fortunes rise and fall with the volatile paper industry. Workers in that industry, including the Stone mill in Panama City and the Florida Coast mill in Port St. Joe, are riding a roller coaster from hell this summer.
Shutdown is the buzzword of late, whether indefinite or temporary remains to be seen.
Similar picture in Port St. Joe where Stone and Box USA each own a 50-percent stake in the Florida Coast mill. As if the shutdown was not enough to contend with, now it appears Four M's chairman, Dennis Mehiel is selling out to a Mexico-based company, but not before he personally buys his company's stake in Florida Coast. The paper mill has become a rumor mill. The words are flying through the community in Port St. Joe, Panama City, Franklin County and elsewhere. Truth is, the rumor mill is working well, almost too well.