Life After Irma

We are recovering slowly in Key West from a most spectacular direct hit by a Category Four Hurricane. Proper internet access still seems days away but we have occasional connections now so I can finally say I am alive and tired. My photos upload fairly easily at night on Instagram at Michael Conchscooter. I duplicate the posts on Facebook at that same name. Until we get broadband I shall not be able to post properly here.
It has been a very hard week with more to come.  My home is solid and dry but many aren't so lucky. There is no structure damage in Key West to speak of but landscaping has been devastated. The Lower Keys took the brunt and there is much damage and wrecked wiring there.
Cheers
Michael
Living at the Key West Police Depsrtment.

Night Hang Outs

I didn't have Rusty, I was on a lunch break and felt like riding my Vespa at random. I really felt like climbing a mountain road or riding through a forest but these options aren't available at the end of the road so I buggered off around town. Sandy's is closed weeknights from midnight to five but this closure was for maintenance the sign said. I am still not used to seeing Sandy's formerly open all the time, closed. No Cuban coffee twenty four hours? Well...

Badboy Burrito is another hangout that offers affordable food and there it was closed at two in the morning. How unsporting! 

flamingo Crossing for ice cream never looks like this during the day and I suppose that was the point as I rode and stopped and took off.   

 Next u as I made my way across town was Santiago's Bodega the tapas place on Petronia Street.

I got right the way to the end of the road and you know it was night time because the irrigation sprays were hosing the ball field at the end of Petronia and I got a face full of irrigation water as I rode by. No harm done it was still in the mid 80s in the middle of the night. There are a lot of comments about the roadways through what is to be the new park with the amphitheater and I'm going wait to see what it looks like when finished in a few months. They are planning a concert here in February so they have a deadline. The entrance to the park at Fort Zachary is open and working here: 

They are playing Dunkirk at the Tropic and I have a hankering to go.  So I rode by on my way back to work up Eaton Street from Truman Waterfront. 

I cut across from Eaton on Bahama Street and stopped at Southard to get this picture of the Cafe before I turned around and headed back to work.

Shorebirds

It wasn't intended as a catalogue, more as a meditation.

 Then the cormorant took off and  I took a picture by reflex. Then I heard the mockingbirds.

 They were calling out to each other from the tops of the trees. So I took another silent picture.

 The seaweed was piled up along the shore by the various winds blowing out of the south. 

 Good pickings for some of the delicate little birds hopping on top of the mat.

 Further along toward the old Bahia Honda bridge there were a few birds on the seawall.

 The bridge itself is giving up after 105  standing here taking trains and then cars:

 The end by Bahia Honda state park is repaired but this end, the west end, is crumbling:

 And then there are the mangroves:

In the end they will prevail where cement won't.

Simonton Street

A cool sign in front of the new firehouse.

Sarabeth's, in what it's website describes as  a landmark clapboard building on Simonton Street. I like the windows. 

What an odd shirt I thought to myself. In a country that reveres the flag I find he habit of making objects out of it to be peculiar. 

Summer rains, lush foliage and overcast skies: still beautiful Key West.

Middle Of The Night

As I write Key West has winds well above 70 miles per hour teetering on sustained and a Category One hurricane, which if it were to get no stronger would be not that bad. Sure there are trees down and power lines torn up and so forth nut this storm has so much more to give. And the thing is it's not moving very fast at all, six miles n hour they say. The waters of the Straits of Florida are warm and all these factors lead some forecasters to predict landfall somewhere near Big Coppitt as a Category Four.

Or maybe not. These storms are nothing if not changeable and forecasters have the devil's own job keeping ahead of them. Sitting in the communications center at Key West PD the wind outside make you glad to be indoors and not to be someone's forgotten pet or abandoned stray. The thing about hurricanes that impresses me is their relentless natures. Sometimes in a rain storm you can catch a break, a pause in the action. Wait long enough and the rain will stop. Here it's been windy and raining steadily for seven hours with lots more to come. No pauses.

 It's difficult to describe living through a hurricane in the police station. I always work night shift so I am generally looking out into darkness and maybe because the storm creates its own myth or perhaps because the power tends to go out(!) it always looks extra menacing and dark out there. You can hear the rumbling of wind hitting the building and the rain slashing on the windows and palm fronds and it creates a feeling of being in a bubble like a spaceship surrounded by hostile alien atmospheres outside.  

I am not given to these flights of fancy but the abrupt contrast between the daily routines inside and the chaos outside is startling. You can get up and step away from your desk, heat some food, wash some dishes and walk back and its still there the wind pushing against the building and struggling to get inside and ruin your night. Inside the spaceship you watch the rain slashing horizontally with total detachment not allowing yourself to feel the threat. 

I cannot imagine how the people around Varadero the Cuban tourist paradise must be feeling with this storm never moving away. Exhaustion is setting in on this side of the Straits and I wish Irma would get on with it and go away. As of midnight it seems like we will have  another dozen hours of wind and rain and cold prying storm fingers trying to find their way into our serene work bubble we call the police station.

Getting Close

Winds around 2 pm went above 40 mph as the National Hurricane Center predicted. I went for  a walk and I just looked around and photographed what I saw. This walk would no longer be possible this Saturday afternoon, just to be clear. Tonight they say it will land in the early hours as a category four with plenty of flooding.

Key West Police are not evacuating but police cars will no longer responding soon. We will continue to take phone calls 24 hours even though we cannot send help at the height of the storm. Our jobs kick in after the  storm to help people recover.

Fire and Rescue have already stopped responding. Monroe County is not responding at all any more. The hospitals are closed and all businesses are closed and winds are getting strong enough to make the Highway unsafe to travel even though it is not officially closed.

 Damage in Bayview Park. I imagine there's a lot more trash there by now...

Birds not of a feather huddling together.

 He didn't look happy:

 Anticipating...corny I know but I couldn't resist.

 Artistic shot of hurricane shutters.

Truman Avenue looking east.

 White Street looking south.

 Rain and a chicken. They do amazingly well:

 Closed of course:

 Leaves were down:

Even the nudie bar and liquor store are closed. The car under the eave is to ease the fears of the owner in a Category Five.

 I hope the flying debris hits the wooden planks:

 Nice plywood shutters well made:

 The weirdest shutters I have ever seen, plastic sheets clipped to the house very professionally.

One of our local subjects talking loudly to herself and refusing help lest you freak out. She's been though more storms than you've had hot dinners.

 The Spanish Lime crop may have been devastated:

They are small lychee-like citrus fruit with a leathery skin and large pit inside covered in white tart fruit. Much enjoyed in Key West:

 It was still rideable.

North Roosevelt Boulevard looking toward Stock Island from in front of the police station:

 Winds were just starting to pick as I completed my circuit around 1 pm

 Kristi was glad to see me! I think.

I was glad to get back into the building as the  wind and rain increased exponentially.