Incorporated in May 1893, Carrabelle calls itself a quiet little fishing village on its river, where the Carrabelle River empties into St. George Sound four miles across the water from Dog Island. The 2020 census counted 2,606 people inside the city limits, and the figures behind it count 765 homes, a third of them seasonal or weekend places, a fifth of them mobile homes, and most of the rest built between 1990 and 2009.
That mix of fish houses, pile-supported Gulf-front homes and block houses on slabs sets the agenda for a door company. Below: who issues the permit now that the city runs its own desk, what the new panels change, what Michael, Kate and Elena left behind, and where the state wind map actually puts this coast.
The city took its permits back in 2018
For years Franklin County handled the city's building permits and inspections. The county stopped in August 2017, and in June 2018 the city commission accepted the county's proposal for a permitting procedure and bought its own online system; a contract for a code official followed in July 2022. Today a homeowner inside the limits applies through the city's iWorQ portal, with single-family, supplemental and development permits as the menu, and pays at City Hall at 1206 Highway 98 East. Lanark Village, the shore west of the river and Alligator Point remain county territory, filed with the Franklin County Building Department, which moved in March 2024 from Forbes Street in Apalachicola to 248 U.S. Highway 98 in Eastpoint, while the county keeps an annex on Northwest Avenue A in town.
Neither office has published a garage-door checklist, but the county's forms include a window-and-door application, a V-zone certificate and a non-conversion agreement required wherever a building has usable space under its flood line, and the state code requires a product approval for any sectional or roll-up exterior door. The 2026 small-job permit waiver skips structural work and any lot in a flood hazard area, which is most of the shoreline; neighboring Apalachicola posted a notice in mid-2026 saying exactly that. What a complete Florida door application contains is set out in our permit guide.
New flood panels since October 10, 2024
The city is its own participant in the federal flood program, with panels dating back to January 1974, and both the city and the county have worked from revised federal panels since October 10, 2024; the county's lookup tool lets an owner compare the new sheet with the 2014 version by address. The ground tells the story, in feet above the water: about 13 on the river side of town, nearly 23 a few blocks up, barely 5 on the shore west of the river and about 16 at Lanark Village.
Gulf-front lots carry a second line on top of the flood panels. The state's Coastal Construction Control Line for the county runs from West Pass east to Ochlockonee Bay, with described segments on St. George Island, Dog Island and Alligator Point, and anything built, altered or excavated seaward of it needs a permit from the state environmental agency as well as the local one; the rule describes the island and point segments rather than the town's own frontage on the sound. Repairs after a storm follow the county's published guidance: a house in the floodplain whose reconstruction would cost half or more of its market value must be rebuilt to new-construction standards, raised above the flood line included.
Michael's 7.3 feet, Kate's docks and Elena's seven houses
Michael made landfall near Tyndall Air Force Base on October 10, 2018, as a category five, and even 60 miles east of the eye this coast took a six-to-nine-foot inundation. Michael's high-water mark in town was measured at 7.3 feet above ground, the state's shoreline report put the water at nine to ten along St. George Sound, it was high enough to enter a restaurant, the local weather station gusted to 53 mph, and 80 structures were reported destroyed across the county, four of them houses on the shore west of the river, with more than half a mile of Alligator Point Drive gone.
The older storms set the pattern. Kate, on November 21, 1985, pushed a seven-to-eight-foot tide onto Dog Island, destroyed 3.6 miles of Highway 98 between Eastpoint and St. Teresa, and, as the state's report put it, left the city substantially protected inside the river mouth while docks along the waterfront flooded; the hurricane also knocked over the World's Smallest Police Station on Highway 98. Elena, that September, destroyed seven houses along the same shore. Helene in 2024 ran three to five feet from the Ochlockonee River to Indian Pass with a 44 mph gust in town, leaving minor to moderate damage in Franklin County.
Hell-by-the-Sea, Lanark Village and the officers' quarters
In June 1942 the War Department took 155,000 acres of coastal Franklin County for an amphibious training center first called Camp Carrabelle and renamed in January 1943 for Colonel Gordon Johnston; the soldiers called it Hell-by-the-Sea, and it was decommissioned in 1946. The former officers' family quarters near Parker Street became housing in the Lanark Village Retirement Community, and the camp's museum stands at 1873 Highway 98 West, across from the beach.
That history matters at the garage because a wartime-era building rarely matches today's stock door sizes, so a replacement there may need a custom width and a new retainer where the old one has rusted into the slab, while the newer pile-supported homes along the sound carry the flood-rule paperwork described above. Dog Island, reachable only by boat or light aircraft, with roughly a hundred residents and most of its land held by the Nature Conservancy, is a different case: any visit there depends on the water taxi, so call to ask before booking.
What the wind map says, and what the salt does
The current state wind map draws its 130 mph line along St. George Island, about 17 miles south-southwest of the city, which leaves the town, Lanark and Alligator Point on the lower side of it while Apalachicola and the island sit on or past it. Impact-resistant glazing is therefore not mandatory in the city unless an ordinance moves the line, but the wind label is, and a lot on the sound is figured for an unobstructed fetch across the water. Our Florida door guide covers how a door earns and labels that rating.
Apalachicola's airport, the nearest long-term station, averages 53.08 inches of rain a year, 9.3 nights at or below freezing and a wet peak in August; between those freezes and the salt, galvanized hardware pits and lift cables fray at the bottom brackets within a few seasons. Rinse tracks and rollers with fresh water, choose stainless where parts are replaced, and keep the roll-up guides on a fish house clean rather than greased.
Tate's Hell, Highway 98 and getting help here
The city sits at the edge of Tate's Hell State Forest, 212,645 acres whose headquarters are on Airport Road in town, and everything arrives along U.S. 98, the same highway that washed out in Michael and Kate. A clear description on the first call matters more here than in a city with a supply house around the corner: the door's width, whether it is sectional or a roll-up curtain, where it stopped, whether a cable is hanging, and photos of the springs and both bottom corners let the technician load the right parts before the drive.
For a second home, a neighbor or manager can send those photos and meet the visit; the standing instruction is to leave a door with a broken spring exactly where it stopped, unplug the opener and keep people clear. Boat barns and seafood houses with high-cycle roll-up doors are better scheduled for a spring check before the summer traffic than during it.
Last updated by the American Garage Door Team.