After The Storm

I can tell you this: if the morning after a  tropical event everything is back to normal it wasn't a hurricane you survived; it was just some wind and rain. Higgs Beach the morning after Tropical Storm Elsa blew through town at 65 miles per hour looked like this:

It was a lovely sunny day, typical of the scene left behind by a hurricane, however flooding had receded electricity was flowing and the Internet never left town. 

At first I was puzzled by all the ventilating in public about the weather system's arrival and then I was exposed to some of the reporting by people whose job it is to report boring stuff

Tropical Storm Elsa was clearly not going to derange our lives much if at all, so even though my family in Europe (!) started sending me messages of consolation I declined to get ramped up about this thing.

I wonder if (when?) we face a true test of our collective mettle whether people who survived Tropical Storm Elsa unscathed will brag about their hurricane expertise and their survival credentials? And how many people exposed to television nonsense about this rains storm will keep their fears in proportion to the next tropical storm? Fear and urgency are entirely appropriate for certain conditions, having lived through them, but worrying about 65 mile per hour winds makes you unqualified to enjoy life in these latitudes.

A quick walk along the waterfront illustrated my point that things were entirely back to normal so I spent the short time remaining on my lunch break to take a  quick walk through the Garden Club.

                                   

I dropped off five bucks in the donation bucket.  There is no entry fee nor any required donation, which when it is required or suggested removes the notion of donation from my mind. So when I visit I like to drop off some cash for this most genteel and serene public spaces.

I am not a botanist, I have never been one and it is far too late to turn me into one. I enjoy plants and trees and flowers for what they bring to the world and the idea that I should fill my rather small brain with a filing system to name plants seems absurd to me.

                  

I dislike cutting trees down, I honestly don't much like to prune plants however good it may be for them. 

I see perfectly manicured gardens around town and I know were I to live in such a place I would need an expensive contract to keep a landscape company well supplied with work as I am totally uninterested in gardening as a hobby.

                                   

I told my wife that when we sold the sailboat with plans to move ashore if she wanted a lawn she would have to hire someone to maintain it. I love the summer sound of lawnmowers droning but I would rather eat crushed glass than be tied to a schedule of lawn mowing all summer long.

                                     

And yet, for as much as I know myself to be a Philistine in these matters I never skip a chance to enjoy the Garden Club and form time to time the Botanical Gardens on Stock Island. Indeed I am overdue a visit there and I only have 276 days left to get another walk done there.

The Garden Club is an excellent spot to spend time in the shade looking out at the water. A book, a thermos flask of Yorkshire Gold and a winter cold front can make this spot ideal. 

Of course in winter it is much more crowded, not only with people who have "flown onto the island" for the winter, as they tend to say rather grandiloquently, but also with lots of colorful flowers whose names escape me of course.

Summer is low season for birds and plants and people which is when I come out of my hiding place and wander round.

This time next year I hope to be in British Columbia, one hopes not in a 120 degree heat wave, though I haven't yet made the case to my wife that we should detour by ferry to Victoria for high tea at The Empress...

                                

...and a visit to Butchart Gardens where even Rusty is welcome. 

But for all that other cities have more land and bigger gardens and vast expanses of green, Key West does pretty well by its location.

                                   

The West Martello Tower was built as part o the coastal defenses of this border town but it was never actually used in war. Instead the gunners at Fort Zachary Taylor trained their artillery pieces on it and used it for practice! Which is why it so much more deteriorated than the perfectly maintained East Martello Tower at the airport.

                                   

It should give us some pause to picture Key West after the Civil War when you had a line of sight from Fort Zachary to Higgs Beach and didn't have to gun down the Reach Resort or the Casa Marina to lay your sights on the Martello Tower. 

                                     

The Martello Tower was popularized by the British around the world as a small coastal defense point with a  flat roof giving a cannon a wide range of fire. 

However it was an Italian who designed the first one in Corsica ( a colony of Genova at the time) in a place called Mortella in 1565. And here they still are in Key West. 

Rather than blowing up passing traffic this old wreck makes for an excellent viewing platform over the glorious colors in the Straits of Florida, from behind a secure iron fence...

A place to sit and contemplate the glories of nature.

No such luck for me. I had to go back to work.

                            

Floods And Alarums

The unfortunate part about being swept by a tropical storm is that after it has passed you by some other underserving resident is in line to get swamped. That is the case with Tropical Storm Elsa now strengthening they say and moving on to the west coast of Florida where people are preparing according to people who know these things. In Key West you learn to cope with inconvenience:

Key West got its share of flooding, the usual streets where floods occur, no less annoying for being habitually flooded during "weather events." In the photo below, taken at Indigenous Park near the waterfront the electrical box on the left side of the picture is raised for the very reason illustrated by the flood waters of Tropical Storm Elsa's downpours.

It was windy in gusts but after the rain moved on people were out doing the usual after being cooped up indoors.

It's not often you get to surf in Key West as the reef tamps down the largest ocean waves. Some days the wind just pushes enough water to create an unusual scene off Higgs Beach:

The entrance to the pier was under water so I stayed on the drier land as i had several hours more work to do and doing it in wet shoes and socks did not appeal. However it was obvious, even from the yoga platform that the White Street Pier was getting pounded.

Smarter folks than I brought boots designed to wade floods:

Streets were closed but that didn't stop people from liberally spraying the underside of their cars with corrosive salt water:

I walked a couple of blocks back to my car and drove back to work to take more calls from people wondering if the Keys were evacuated- No- or of the highway was open -Yes- but when I saw video from the weather people I understood why the rest of the world thinks its worse than it was. Shock! Horror! Weather Drama!

Meanwhile the mails were getting through as normal, and the letter carrier when I stopped by to congratulate him on his perseverance smiled because we both knew people who think they have survived a tropical weather event have just been through some heavy rain and wind. Letters aren't delivered during true hurricanes, and life doesn't just go back to normal after the storm blows over.

I did not feel this lighthearted after Hurricane Irma hit the Keys in 2017. My first few pictures after Internet was somewhat restored: Irma and Higgs Beach.

In 2005 before smart phones or widespread digital cameras Hurricane Wilma flooded Key West horribly and in 2017 Hurricane Wilma blew 140 mph winds into the islands. Not much fun as I wrote then:

Irma exhaustion.

Higgs Park turned into a wading pool. There was a dog running around in the dog park too just as a reminder that outside the world of television, life is pretty normal here:

You'd think chickens would get wiped out but it is just a  passing misery for them. They all popped out quite happily after Hurricane Irma blew through town. They are survivors: 

All those preparations sometimes miss some detail. The hurricane drama spared this abandoned trash can which sat stoically through the devastation of a rain storm:

Businesses on Front Street were ready with sandbags because Front Street floods all the time when high tides and heavy rain coincide.

Not a post apocalyptic scene, just daily living in Key West. Just another golf cart leading a slow speed guided tour down a street:

Surviving The Rain

Urgent Weather Update: It Rained As Predicted.

I'd much rather have walked Rusty than come in to work, but I dutifully left home early, before five and found an empty open highway, not a power line out of place, not a leaf in the roadway. I knew the power was good because the electric clock wasn't flashing in the living room, so despite text warnings from Keys Energy everything worked as it should. In these islands used to tropical weather that was no surprise.

I had time to spare so I drove down to the Bight and stepped out under an umbrella with my waterproof pocket camera. It was windy and the rain was slashing, trying to get under my umbrella as I walked out on the docks.

It did not look to me like the old hands in the harbor had taken the time to prepare for the storm as everything looked as it usually does, just a bit wetter. I dare say this afternoon one could even go for a fish as gentle southeast breezes are expected to return, under sunny skies. 

If you hang around people debating the value of surviving a catastrophe you'll find some that really like the warnings you get before a storm and others who prefer to be surprised as by an earthquake. I've lived through both and am decidedly in favor of the hurricane survival mode. Lots of warnings, and in our well built world (mostly) it's hard for anyone to die of hurricane related weather.

In the past hurricane warnings tended to get overblown but this year the city and county managed to be alert and keep control and not force evacuations where none were needed. It was windy and I struggled to control camera and umbrella at once but it wasn't   enough wind to knock over but one tree on Simonton Street, which is cleaned up already. I blame the umbrella for some fuzzy pictures here:

I wandered around for a few minutes surprised to see dinghies still in the water but there they were in the water getting rained on.  

I talked to a friend of mine who went through Hurricane Irma as well and when I remarked how much better this is he said he was getting PTSD from the category four that caused extensive damage in the Keys. 

Rain wind and unpleasantness leads me to ponder the people who don't keep their dogs indoors, people who don't have waterproof homes and people who do but don't believe in climate change. Maybe I overthink stuff but I was never as relieved as when we moved from home ownership to becoming renters. To leave the  Keys we give notice, lock the door and drive away.  If I never have to speak to a real estate agent again it will be too soon.

To some extent anyone who lived through Hurricane Irma has to have some PTSD after that breakdown of society. It's a humbling experience not to have running water  never mind no electricity Internet or fuel. For days. 

I have heard the suggestion, from a friend who needs to remain nameless for exhibiting excessive commonsense, that we not name storms until they are hurricanes and possibly Category Two storms. We live in a world of hype, fear and gullibility so I suppose any attempts to suggest to people they learn to manage with the information they can gather themselves is open to the charge of snobbery or some such. 

It was a rainy day in Key West and happily I could not keep the umbrella still to save my life. So I accidentally made rainbows. I think that after the rain blows over, the stray dogs will I trust, dry out, and one former stray dog at least will get off the couch, stretch and go outside to great the proper arrival of summer. It's called hurricane season but there will now be a pause while we enjoy some swimming and blue skies and boring uninterrupted tropical living. Until next time when we will re-evaluate.