When you travel down Interstate 95 south to the Florida border, you really don’t see Hurricane Matthew’s effects until you hit mile marker 36 or so…

That’s when you see your first blue tarp on top of a hotel that is in real need of repair.

Then, you see the overflowing marshland- which, according to GPB cameraman Shane Keating, is a part of the process. They self-police themselves and make everything as normal as it was before. The trees that aren’t attached and are more linked to roads and overhanging them are what you see next…

Packs of garbage that used to be a lot higher than it used to be…

The occasional hammering of wooden poles and anchors that needs to restore the fence lines that they anchored before…

That’s the recovering normal along the Georgia coastline…

St. Mary’s is right along the water and had downtown flooded, but they quickly have put downtown where it was before. In catching up with the Tourism Director in St. Mary’s, Angela Wigger, she said that water had gone a few blocks into downtown but the town had been working hard to get everything squared away for their Halloween Celebration in town.

And they’re pretty much there…

Camden County High School looks like it came through unscathed with one exception- the baseball scoreboard. And it was uprooted completely out of its 6-inch cement base. The only thing keeping it from being out of the ground is the outfield fence keeping it propped.

Here’s a small sample of what it was like when it hit Jacksonville and punched St. Augustine squarely in the jaw. You’ll also see Friend of GPB, Chris Porter, doing news in a situation like this…

((HT: Cheri Staples’ YouTube channel/First Coast News Jax))

But you catch up with Camden County high head football coach Welton Coffey and the first thing you see is a man in Crocs and crutches…

He woke up just before Matthew like his entire back locked up and he lost feeling in his left leg. He couldn’t quite put a finger on what was up until he went to the doctor and found out that one of his lumbar vertebrae is in open and degenerative rebellion at the moment. He had to go with his family back home to Jacksonville and be a part of his family that was inland Matthew hit. He’s on the mend, albeit a slow mend, and the Camden schedule will only be 9 games this season.

But there’s a bigger lesson here: His athletes went on their own to help move debris from neighbors homes as a part of the recovery in the county. Although, one county north in Glynn, it’s still a whole lot worse. Coffey also admits that those are the kind of young men that they’re trying to bring forward as members of the community.

And, yes the season has been tough but at the same time, lessons come from different places and times.

So, keep everyone affected by Matthew in your thoughts these days as things are bad in some spots but they could have been a whole lot worse…

This week on “Football Fridays” it’s a great rivalry as Brookwood hosts Parkview- and it will be a special night as the 1996 squad will show up in the community…

The “All-Access Pass” kicks it off at 7 with kickoff a little after 7:30. So join Mark, Jackie, and the rest of the GPB Army (as Matt says) as we get one week closer to the post-season…

Be a part of the process on social media on the GPB Sports Facebook page, on Twitter (@GPBSportsand @OSGNelson) and on Instagram and Snapchat as well…

Play it safe everyone… I’ll see you at the stadium…