It is a rain-sodden American flag, half-hidden under the green leaves of fallen trees.
A few paces away Judie McRae, 44, is inspecting the damage to her trailer home.
Judie has lived more than half of her life here but she says this is her first hurricane. She spent it hunkered down in bed, unable to sleep.
She does not want to see another one.
"I just felt like my roof was going to come off at any minute," she says, describing a terrible sound of "cracking and creaking" that only stopped for a few minutes of calm when the eye of the hurricane passed directly over her head.
"I was very fortunate that only two little windows got broke," she says.
Exactly how fortunate is obvious. Three of her neighbours' houses lie in ruins. Sheet metal has been twisted out of shape and insulation foam hangs from the trees. Books and clothes are soaking in the rain. One powder blue trailer home has caved in completely, its wooden skeleton broken and exposed.
As we examine the damage a young man arrives, agitated. He asks us if we have checked inside for the owner. We have not.
"Dan, are you in here?" he shouts.
We climb into the wreckage to help search for Dan, gingerly stepping over the missing man's possessions and clambering around his bathtub. There is no-one here.
'It was ferocious'
Judie, meanwhile, is worried about two other neighbours. Both got out before the storm struck and have not yet returned to learn that their homes are destroyed.
She is particularly concerned about the elderly woman who lives two trailers along.
"She has no money and that was her home and it was already crap so..." Judie tails off as if she can think of no useful way to complete the thought, no hope to offer.
Meanwhile, down on the shore of Rockport, Robert Zbranek, 56, is trying to secure his boat to the dock after it broke free during the storm.
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