President Trump got a firsthand look at the path of destruction Hurricane Michael carved out along the Florida Panhandle and Georgia during a day of aerial tours Monday.

In Marine One, Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, flew over the hardest hit areas, including Mexico Beach, Fla., where 46 people who didn’t evacuate are still missing.

A group of journalists tagged along for the one-hour tour in an accompanying Osprey helicopter.

They described utter devastation in Mexico Beach, a tiny coastal town of about 1,000 people — eighteen-wheelers tossed about a parking lot like toys, a water tower knocked onto its side and entire roofs shorn off homes.

The Trumps’ first stop was to hand out bottles of water at an aid center in Lynn Haven, a city of about 18,500 located north of Panama City, Fla.

The president walked the rubble-strewn streets and marveled at how massive trees were “just ripped out of the earth.” One resident, he recalled, described the hurricane as being “like a very wide — extremely wide — tornado.”

Trump said the biggest priority of the day was “just making sure everyone is safe, that they’re fed.”

“You know, many of these people, they have no homes,” Trump said. “Some of them have no trace of a home. You wouldn’t even know it. It just got blown right off the footing.”

After arriving at Eglin Air Force Base in the Panhandle, Trump hailed Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long for leading recovery efforts.

Scott said he’d been in constant contact with the president.

“Everything I’ve asked for from FEMA, they’ve done,” Scott said. “We got the water out, we got the food out. We had search and rescue teams the night of the hurricane going into these communities to save lives. Our Coast Guard did missions at night, saving lives. And they saved a lot of people’s lives.”

The storm, which came ashore last Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane, has left at least 18 people dead across four states.

It was initially believed that some 285 residents of Mexico Beach — which sat in the direct path of the hurricane — didn’t evacuate, but officials believe many left right before the storm hit.

So far, just one person from the town has been confirmed dead.

“If we lose only one life, to me that’s going to be a miracle,” Mayor Al Cathey said as searches continued.

About 224,000 homes and businesses across Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina and Virginia were still without power Monday morning, according to a tally by CBS News.

Widespread cellphone outages have made it tough to determine exactly how many people remain missing.

With Wires