Wilma
Living in the desert of Arizona, there's not a lot of opportunity to see what happens when Mother Nature throws a big fit. Sure, we have dust storms and the occasional microburst but nothing that compares to earthquakes, mudslides, tornadoes or hurricanes. I didn't know what to expect when we got to Florida after Wilma swept through but, to my naive eyes, it didn't look too good.
The first sighting we had of the damage was upon our descent into Fort Lauderdale. There were patches of ground that looked like a giant had stomped down on everything. The trees were blown over and, in some cases, torn out of the ground.
After picking up our car, we took a roundabout way to the turnpike that went through some of the city streets. Traffic signals were out, street signs were bent and buildings were damaged. Most of the billboards and outside signage was destroyed. Every intersection became a four way stop so traffic was a bit scary. The turnpike was pretty clear and they weren't collecting tolls so we had a clear path to the Keys.
There was plenty of gasoline in the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area but no electricity to pump it. I heard a lot of people were driving down to the upper Keys to get gas since the power was on there. Some areas are not projected to have electricity until after Thanksgiving. I really can't imagine...
Crime Dog and Viv were a bit ahead of us so we told them to meet us at Loreli's. They got there to find that it was closed down for repairs as were a lot of places in the Keys. There were lots of hotels with their entire contents on the side of the road for pickup. Beds, dressers, appliances and tree branches were piled up on the sides of the road. There were also boats just off the road. One sailboat actually blocked a lane of US1 for a while until they could get it moved.
We ended up deciding where to stop based on what was open and had neon beer signs and the people seemed pretty happy to see us. We pulled into Key West around 10ish (I think) and the debris was even more obvious there. Pretty much every street had at least tree branches piled up. There were also more appliances, house trim and awnings and miscellaneous detritus. It wasn't pretty. Being the logistics type that I am, I couldn't help but wonder where they were going to take it all. They'd have to truck it out of the Keys, I guessed, and I wondered how long it would take. When we left 9 days later, most of it was still there except for what was near the host hotel.
On Monday, Pab and I decided to take a walking tour and check out the island. Pab's pictures show some of the damage. The patio at Louie's Backyard was completely wiped out as was The Sands. They were starting work on rebuilding, though. The Casa Marina, which was supposed to be the host hotel, was a complete mess. The beach had traveled all the way up to the buildings so what used to be a large grassy, sloping area was a mass of sand. One of the sides of the building looked like it came off. They were stopping people from walking onto the property but I heard it was pretty bad throughout but that they were working nonstop to get it back in order.
The new host hotel, The Reach, looked to be in better shape. They'd had a guy with a small Cat working all day and into the night moving the sand off the hotel grounds and back on to the beach so they were ahead of the Casa on that. There was still some work to be done but it looked like it would be good to go before the masses descended.
We headed off to Southernmost Point next. You could really see the damage there. The wind of Wilma wasn't really the problem, it was the ocean surge that plowed through the island after the storm. It scoured the paint off the Southernmost marker and knocked over lots of fences. The water also totaled most of the cars in Key West. There was a shortage of rental cars and half of the taxi fleet was wiped out thanks to the flooding of all of the vehicles.
We ended up at The Green Parrot for a couple of beers and got to talking to a local woman. While we'd been walking, we were surprised at how few people there were on the island. It was almost eerie. We asked the woman if it was unusual for a Monday or par for the course and she told us it was most unusual. As locals popped in and out, the conversation was the same. "How did you fare?"
From what I heard throughout our stay, a lot of people lost nearly everything. There was a hurricane food stamp and supplies line every morning outside the Cigar Factory with lots of people in it and FEMA was around. As a matter of fact, they tried to appropriate the convention's rented tents.
There were so many aftereffects that I, in my ignorance, hadn't thought about. Our rental agent told us that some of the A/C units and other appliances that survived the flooding were now giving out a week later. A guy we had lunch next to told us that a fire had started with another guy's A/C unit even though the power was shut off to it. The owner of Camille's told me how she had stood in her front yard holding up a "NO WAKE" sign as people zoomed down her street sending the water back into her yard and house. She also talked about losing two of her refrigerators and how she'd scattered a batch of Key Lime Pies throughout her neighbors' fridges until they were needed at the restaurant. A commercial fisherman said they couldn't go out for several days and when they did go out, the storm had churned the seas so much that their catch was way lighter than usual.
To make matters worse, Beta came in on us Monday night causing more flooding and a couple of power outages. Terry and Debbie's rental was good until that point but trashed by the flood so they had to scramble for a new place to stay. The Reach sprung a leak in one of the meeting rooms we were supposed to be using so there was rearranging of the rearranged plans. Fortunately, the rain after that was fairly light.
There were 3,500 people signed up for the convention. We were estimating about 700 no-shows which is way higher than usual. From what I could see, most of those folks were from Florida. I'm guessing they were probably stuck at home trying to secure generators and fuel and putting their homes and businesses back in order.
Bless those folks for going through all that (and the other hurricanes this past year). I think I would have skedaddled back to the desert long ago.
Here's what's left of Louie's patio.
The scoured Southernmost marker.
Demolished brick fence across from Southernmost.
The first sighting we had of the damage was upon our descent into Fort Lauderdale. There were patches of ground that looked like a giant had stomped down on everything. The trees were blown over and, in some cases, torn out of the ground.
After picking up our car, we took a roundabout way to the turnpike that went through some of the city streets. Traffic signals were out, street signs were bent and buildings were damaged. Most of the billboards and outside signage was destroyed. Every intersection became a four way stop so traffic was a bit scary. The turnpike was pretty clear and they weren't collecting tolls so we had a clear path to the Keys.
There was plenty of gasoline in the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area but no electricity to pump it. I heard a lot of people were driving down to the upper Keys to get gas since the power was on there. Some areas are not projected to have electricity until after Thanksgiving. I really can't imagine...
Crime Dog and Viv were a bit ahead of us so we told them to meet us at Loreli's. They got there to find that it was closed down for repairs as were a lot of places in the Keys. There were lots of hotels with their entire contents on the side of the road for pickup. Beds, dressers, appliances and tree branches were piled up on the sides of the road. There were also boats just off the road. One sailboat actually blocked a lane of US1 for a while until they could get it moved.
We ended up deciding where to stop based on what was open and had neon beer signs and the people seemed pretty happy to see us. We pulled into Key West around 10ish (I think) and the debris was even more obvious there. Pretty much every street had at least tree branches piled up. There were also more appliances, house trim and awnings and miscellaneous detritus. It wasn't pretty. Being the logistics type that I am, I couldn't help but wonder where they were going to take it all. They'd have to truck it out of the Keys, I guessed, and I wondered how long it would take. When we left 9 days later, most of it was still there except for what was near the host hotel.
On Monday, Pab and I decided to take a walking tour and check out the island. Pab's pictures show some of the damage. The patio at Louie's Backyard was completely wiped out as was The Sands. They were starting work on rebuilding, though. The Casa Marina, which was supposed to be the host hotel, was a complete mess. The beach had traveled all the way up to the buildings so what used to be a large grassy, sloping area was a mass of sand. One of the sides of the building looked like it came off. They were stopping people from walking onto the property but I heard it was pretty bad throughout but that they were working nonstop to get it back in order.
The new host hotel, The Reach, looked to be in better shape. They'd had a guy with a small Cat working all day and into the night moving the sand off the hotel grounds and back on to the beach so they were ahead of the Casa on that. There was still some work to be done but it looked like it would be good to go before the masses descended.
We headed off to Southernmost Point next. You could really see the damage there. The wind of Wilma wasn't really the problem, it was the ocean surge that plowed through the island after the storm. It scoured the paint off the Southernmost marker and knocked over lots of fences. The water also totaled most of the cars in Key West. There was a shortage of rental cars and half of the taxi fleet was wiped out thanks to the flooding of all of the vehicles.
We ended up at The Green Parrot for a couple of beers and got to talking to a local woman. While we'd been walking, we were surprised at how few people there were on the island. It was almost eerie. We asked the woman if it was unusual for a Monday or par for the course and she told us it was most unusual. As locals popped in and out, the conversation was the same. "How did you fare?"
From what I heard throughout our stay, a lot of people lost nearly everything. There was a hurricane food stamp and supplies line every morning outside the Cigar Factory with lots of people in it and FEMA was around. As a matter of fact, they tried to appropriate the convention's rented tents.
There were so many aftereffects that I, in my ignorance, hadn't thought about. Our rental agent told us that some of the A/C units and other appliances that survived the flooding were now giving out a week later. A guy we had lunch next to told us that a fire had started with another guy's A/C unit even though the power was shut off to it. The owner of Camille's told me how she had stood in her front yard holding up a "NO WAKE" sign as people zoomed down her street sending the water back into her yard and house. She also talked about losing two of her refrigerators and how she'd scattered a batch of Key Lime Pies throughout her neighbors' fridges until they were needed at the restaurant. A commercial fisherman said they couldn't go out for several days and when they did go out, the storm had churned the seas so much that their catch was way lighter than usual.
To make matters worse, Beta came in on us Monday night causing more flooding and a couple of power outages. Terry and Debbie's rental was good until that point but trashed by the flood so they had to scramble for a new place to stay. The Reach sprung a leak in one of the meeting rooms we were supposed to be using so there was rearranging of the rearranged plans. Fortunately, the rain after that was fairly light.
There were 3,500 people signed up for the convention. We were estimating about 700 no-shows which is way higher than usual. From what I could see, most of those folks were from Florida. I'm guessing they were probably stuck at home trying to secure generators and fuel and putting their homes and businesses back in order.
Bless those folks for going through all that (and the other hurricanes this past year). I think I would have skedaddled back to the desert long ago.
Here's what's left of Louie's patio.
The scoured Southernmost marker.
Demolished brick fence across from Southernmost.