Hurricane Sandy And Keys Energy

Seven lineman and several trucks took off for New York ten days ago from sunny Key West. It's been cool and windy down here, overnight lows managing to get just below sixty degrees one night, but that's as nothing compared to what these tropical workers found in the Empire State.

I had heard the trucks were heading north but the newspaper reported their services weren't required. What the paper failed to report was that they were redirected even though they lack proper winter clothing! Poor buggers! You can see in these pictures, from the Keys Energy website how their clothing is trying to reflect conditions as they traveled north, shirt sleeves at home and jackets blending in with brown Fall leaves on the road and woolly watch caps in the snow...

It took two days to drive up to New York with three bucket trucks, a utility truck and a pole trailer. In fact Delaware, unscathed, turned down the help but on November First the Long Island Power utility stepped up and asked for the Keys' help, workers who have more experience than most dealing with hurricane damage. But not like this.

It may seem odd but I know half a dozen of my young colleagues in Key West, Conchs born on or around the island, who have never seen snow, thus it was the cause of some great merriment to see their friends and neighbors trying to do their job in conditions that aren't just trying but downright peculiar if you have lived your life in the only frost-free town on the continent.

I heard stories that the utility workers also faced the stereotypical bad humor of people who like to live in New York who chose to berate our utility men for their "delayed" response. And it did them no good to protest they had trudged all the way from distant warm Key West to help. And all joking aside, help they did, and are helping, seen here in a place that goes by the unhappy name of Hicksville, New York.

It's a funny story to read about our people working in forty degree weather and worse, repairing lines with snow on the ground, but the post hurricane conditions in New York and New Jersey are a source of a lot of comment in Key West where surviving a storm is matter of course. Not in blizzard conditions of course.

Perhaps it is because we half expect hurricanes any summer, perhaps because we live so obviously close to the source of stormy discomfort, the ocean, that we live our lives half prepared for disaster. I would be embarrassed to run out of fuel food and water within three days of a hurricane strike. Granted I have a good job and thus disposable income thanks to my lack of offspring, but I make sure to have supplies on hand year round. It's a way of life. It was shocking to see the widespread helplessness in the face of an act of natural ferocity whose arrival was accurately predicted for days ahead of the actual event. I am proud of the help that our tiny community sent Up North and admire their tenacity in conditions I never particularly wish to see again, never mind work in. Good for them.

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Flamingo, Florida.

The fact that it was Election Day when I was cruising the Everglades on a boat may have accounted for the fact that the other passengers were foreigners. I had voted in Big Pine Key earlier in the week and was free to take a little road trip with my faithful sidekick, and Labradors don't vote in this backward state so we were both in fine fettle for an adventure.

It doesn't look like it but these flatlands are part of Monroe County whose seat is Key West, which fact may come as a surprise to some readers. Flamingo residents would have voted in Monroe County not in contiguous Dade, even though there aren't many residents at the headquarters of Everglades National Park.

It's pretty easy to guess there are more birds than people, even though the pink one seen above is a roseate spoonbill, not a flamingo. For humans that want to stay, temporarily in Flamingo there used to be a rather uninspired motel building on the waterfront. However a hurricane put paid to that and plans to build new accommodations have been shelved, the government preferring to blow up Afghanistan rather than maintaining our precious parks. So accommodations are reduced to bring-your-own-canvas:

I'm sure a monstrous sized RV would be accommodated as well. However Cheyenne and I had reservations in a dog friendly La Quinta motel up the road in Collier County so we were sleeping in luxury. The park is not very welcoming to dogs as it happens. They can only circle parking lots, and trails are outlawed to them which I think sucks. My dog is better behaved than most children.

So when I went into the Marina Store to pick up a refreshing fizzy cola and the clerk offered a ride on a boat as a matter of her corporate selling strategy I automatically demurred saying I had a dog. No problem she perked cheerfully, dogs are welcome. I'm not sure a hundred pound Labrador was what they had in mind but on she went and obediently laid down to snooze while the big old pontoon boat took off up the canal.

Our pilot and guide was a drawling laid back character who earned his tips by delivering his commentary in a manner that I can best describe as in the style of Garrison Keillor telling tales of Lake Wobegon. He entertained us in a dry witty way, converting measurements to metric for the benefit of the Spaniards, French and German passengers and a chattering group of Asians who claimed to be from Iowa. So much for stereotyping I was a bit taken aback to learn they were from the same place as my Vespa.

 

We got see a whole bunch of birds whose names as usual I barely remember. Start with another spoonbill.

I think this is a three colored heron, or some such:

An ibis?

An osprey having lunch.

An anhinga, whatever that is:

Aside from birds we also got to see some flora, much of which I knew, as I have been living among mangroves for quite a while. I've seen the manchineel (”man-chin-kneel") tree in the Caribbean were its dangerous poisonous properties are well known. In the Keys the common poisonwood tree inflicts unpleasant burns, similar to poison oak, but the manchineel sap is really nasty and it can kill if the fruit, which looks like a crab apple, is eaten

The easiest identification according to the captain was to look for drooping leaves which is the best identifier I've heard. Oh, and stay away if you do see those drooping leaves. I haven't seen any in the Lower Keys where the milder poisonwood is plentiful.

The canoeists looked cheerful as they toyed with manchineel death, and even though renting a canoe is an option in these waterways I'd rather go by big wide pontoon boat with a knowledgeable guide. The view doesn't change much. There is actually a 99 mile trail through the Ten Thousand Islands of southwest Florida, through the park. There are wooden platforms along the way for camping and I'm told the trip takes an average ten days of true wilderness travel. We passed a canoe dock available as the starting point for a short portage through the forest to a nearby lake.

We also passed an alligator resting on the bank.

And that got everyone's attention.

People do like to be scared when are safe on a boat . Alligators have a more fearsome reputation than they deserve unless you are going to be stupid and provoke them, when they will react. I find them much more fear inspiring than sharks, not least because they can run fast on land, and hunt even when they are not hungry, so I steer clear of them but they are also pretty docile unless provoked or unless you choose to swim in their backyard. An iPad as portable camera inspires me with fear for our electronic future.

Even shallow, low freeboard little boats can safely navigate among the alligators and crocodiles of Florida's waters.

 

The occupants of this canoe clearly thought their rental craft was going to tip and launch them into alligator infested waters when they saw our big pontoon boat rushing toward them pushing a wall of water in front. Which reminds me of the old joke about the difference between Canadians and canoes: canoes tip.

There was nothing to worry about as our captain knew what he was doing and slowed to idle speed in plenty of time. My dog wasn't worrying about anything.

 

As if the alligator (and all the birds) weren't enough by the time we got back to the marina an endangered American crocodile was basking in the weak November sun on the boat ramp. Crocs are much more shy than alligators and they are also much more rare, 200,000 we are told versus two million alligators. Crocs are also saltwater creatures that can cope with water that is only slightly salty (known as brackish) whereas alligators are freshwater creatures.

There was more pandemonium on the boat as we paused near the dinosaur and then we were back at the dock. The canal was built after World War Two when developers thought draining the Everglades was a good idea. By the time scientists had convinced everyone is was a very bad idea fresh water filled with agricultural chemical runoff was flowing past the natural filtration of the grasses straight into Florida Bay causing algae blooms and affecting turbidty putting coral at risk. So the Army Corps of Engineers plugged the canal and flow is returning to normal, even though there are still too many canals in the Everglades that are wrecking water quality elsewhere. The plug:

And the marina store, home sweet home:

It was an overcast day making it pleasant for a picnic at the tables on the docks.

Cheyenne and I had places to go and people to see, so off we went, back up the 38 miles to Homestead, through the River of Grass, as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas famously called it in her eponymous book.

It is quite flat around here.

A long straight road it is.

But because Cheyenne was prohibited from visiting the alluring side trails and boardwalks we pressed on. Happily the speed limit is mostly a sensible 55mph, so it doesn't take long to get back to dog friendly country.

 

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Arcadia, Florida

It's when you get away from the Keys that the limitations of life in the long thin peninsula become apparent. For instance on my recent road trip to mainland Florida I came across this bizarre conundrum. Two thin pieces of metal curving away parallel to infinity. Whatever could they be for?

We were in Arcadia the capital of cowboy country and home of the Arcadian newspaper apparently. Cheyenne rejected the offer of a city walk on the grounds of heat exhaustion and sheer bloody mindedness and decided to defy me and take a nap in the shade of the newspaper offices. I was disappointed as I wanted to take a walk as I quite like how different Acadia is.

Like I said, this is cowboy country and they are quite fond of that fact, witness this casual looking dude:

This is the seat of Desoto County, a city founded in the 19th century and named after a child who baked a birthday cake for a local bigwig. So he named the nascent town in Arcadia's honor. The census thinks 6600 people live in town. Cool, but I'm pretty sure they won't be embracing weird guys in pink Crocs in this town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is quite the Latin farm worker population here too.

 

I guess I should be over being surprised especially in farm country but when I see Mexicans in Homestead and Guatemalans in Burnsville North Carolina I am always a little surprised. The world of he Joad family really is long gone.

 

Central Florida. a different world.

 

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