Jason Mullinax's home after Hurricane Michael.
Southeast of Panama City, Fla. you'll find Tyndall Air Force Base. As of now, and with a promise by the Trump Administration to rebuild, the base is unusable after the explosive damage done by Hurricane Michael last month.
Crossing East Bay to the north sits the Tyndall Federal Credit Union's Parker branch – also, for now, closed, as is the branch on the base.
On Wednesday, CU Times spoke with Tyndall FCU's branch manager of the Parker location, Jason Mullinax from his temporary home roughly 70 miles away from Panama City.
Mullinax, like many other credit union employees and members in the area, is living with his family in a temporary location. Because of a housing shortage in the region, Mullinax, his wife and three children are staying two hours away in Destin, Fla.
"Right now I'm driving two hours to work each morning from Destin and the credit union was phenomenal in giving us the resources through LSCU to set us up in a place for a few weeks," said Mullinax.
During the Category 4 Hurricane, Mullinax and his family hid in a closet under the stairs. "It was one of the scariest things I ever went through," he said. "If I had to do it all over again, I would have had us all leave."
In a short video Mullinax recorded on his iPhone during the storm, you can hear him echoing those thoughts as he surveyed the initial damage just after the eye of the hurricane passed, "We won't stay again, that's for sure."
His house is unlivable. A large tree in the front yard damaged the roof and ripped up the driveway. Much of the roof is gone and the backyard is covered in downed trees and pieces of destroyed storage sheds.
Despite all of this and his realization of, "I truly believe in hurricane PTSD," Mullinax remains quite positive in the tone of his voice, his outlook of the world in which he lives and his Tyndall FCU team.
"To be honest with you, at first it seemed like such a negative thing and honestly a lot of good is going to come out of this," he said. "It shows how strong we really can be as a credit union."
As of this moment, three of the nine branches in the Panama City area are closed.
Mullinax gives a lot of credit to the League of Southern Credit Unions, the Tyndall FCU executive team, as well as the local Red Cross and Salvation Army organizations for relieving some of the stress.
"Everybody is just there for you and I feel that," Mullinax said. "It hurts, but you see them all going 'We're here and we'll rebuild it.'"
Mullinax and his team are currently working with a mobile ATM unit at one of the Tyndall FCU branches that's fully operational. He said he believes the Parker branch will reopen soon, as utilities and other services are slowly restored.
Mullinax explained the reality of what it'll take to move back into his home, "We're cutting our way in with chainsaws. It's a lot of work. There's no real timeline yet as we're getting repairs done to make my family and I feel safe," He continued, "As soon as it feels safe enough, we'll move back in."
Throughout our conversation, Mullinax kept his spirts up and he contributed that attitude to his love for his family and his credit union.
"Everybody is picking up the pieces as a complete team and really trying to make a difference for our community and serve our members," he said. "I feel like what's happening in Panama City is amazing and as a whole, we're really pulling together."
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Michael Ogden
Editor-in-Chief at CU Times. To connect, email at [email protected]. As Editor-in-Chief of CU Times since 2016, Michael Ogden has led the editorial team in all aspects of content strategy and execution, including the creation of the publication’s exclusive and proprietary research database of the credit union industry’s economic landscape. Under Michael’s leadership, CU Times has successfully shifted to an all-digital editorial product with new focuses on the payments, fraud, lending and regulatory beats. Most recently, he introduced a data-focused editorial product for subscribers that breaks down credit union issues into hard data, allowing for a deeper and more factual narrative for readers. In 2024, he launched the "Shared Accounts With CU Times" podcast, which offers a fresh, inside-the-newsroom perspective through interviews with leaders from the credit union industry and the regulatory world. He dives into pressing credit union issues, while revealing the personalities working behind-the-scenes to push the credit union world forward. His background includes years as a radio and TV anchor/reporter and a public relations and digital/social media manager, where he covered the food and music industries, as well as cooperatives and credit unions. Over the years, he has launched numerous exclusive video and podcast series, including a successful series of interactive backstage interviews with musicians at music festivals, showcasing his social media and live streaming production skills.
