Sharing My Keys

On the horizon the Sombrero Lighthouse rises up showing some human made objects can withstand massive hurricanes.

Humans seem so frail sometimes, recoiling from danger, treated to careful instructions that if followed will remove any element of danger or surprise fear or discomfort. The signs annoy me because the intent is to remove the "liability" factor from our lives. Insurance companies and lawsuits rule us all with the unanswerable argument that liability makes everything impossibly unsafe. There is no room for personal decision making. I'd much rather see an information board explaining the risks and letting each and every one decide how much to assume. But here as in so many places, one size fits all.

Because I am naturally law abiding I would never cross a line made so prohibitive as the one above. I seek out danger elsewhere...

The ravages of nature are especially burdensome to me here at the highest point in the Lower Keys. I have often pointed out this is the only place you can wander on something that remotely resembles a hill. This is where I can look down on the water.  So I do.

Finally we are moved back into our house after three weeks in the city of Key West and this change makes it possible for me to let Rusty loose on his favorite wilderness trails and he likes going wild from time to time. I stand back and watch. 

He seemed to enjoy his urban street walks but he was very excited to get home and have a dog door again and a place in the sun on the deck, and an open driveway to lounge in, unfettered by fences or restrictions. He doesn't go anywhere but he likes to know he could if he wanted to. A very human trait I find.

I think the iguanas are having a hard time here. As resilient as they are they need food and drink and here there is next to none. Perhaps it was the heat but I saw far fewer than previously in the twigs that used to be bushes.

He doesn't like to swim and were I an actuary I probably would forbid him from standing on the edge. As it is I watch and hope I don't have to jump in to save him. He lived on the streets for many months and I suspect he is more savvy than am I.

They're back and I'm not at all sure how I feel about them. The tourists are back bringing money and driving slowly as they admire the piles of junk that have become the backdrop to our daily lives. I confess I find it irritating. I am not surprised animals in zoos fall into states of depression. 

The argument is always presented as an economic issue as though that is supposed to salve the irritation. "We bring money." Indeed and that fact just adds to the feeling of inadequacy. We can't get by without them and they know it, and we know it and we aren't allowed to be anything other than charming like circus performers. Our homes may be wrecked and our cars flooded but if we want our jobs we have to perform for our supper. And not show irritation that this is our lot.

I want to camouflage myself like a dog in a thicket because I have am acute sense of apartness ever since Irma. I've never felt this way before and maybe this time I feel like this because Irma was horrendous and I lived through it and I have been displaced for the first time in my life and even though I am now home, in my head I am not. 

Here they come, ready to explore the barren hillside, the leafless bushes, the piles of smelly seaweed and clearly my feelings of resentment are absurd. I need to be more like my dog, but I am not ready to share.

I enjoyed the isolation right after the storm, the absence of people and traffic, the highway closed in Florida City and the closure making evacuees crazy with worry...But for me down here it was a different story. To be in the Keys while underpopulated was an experience worth living. Before the storm there was a sense of foreboding combined with frantic energy from people who had procrastinated getting ready. After the storm, the worst had happened and it was time to assess in a meditative way.

After the storm normal rules of behavior were thrust into the background. Driving ( or riding) was an adventure and speed limits seemed absurdly optimistic on roads covered in debris. The absence of fuel, stores or services was an incentive to look inward and experience for a few short days the social experiment of living wild. It was as close to living the zombie apocalypse as I ever expect to experience. And now these amateurs are treating my life changing experience as a playground. And paying for their trouble.

Gas lines are gone, the National Guard and FEMA are still visible in our communities but I have electricity and internet and the air conditioning is working at least for now. I can order food for delivery and I can plan a few activities for my days off. I live la vida loca LINK. 

 I am trying to look beyond the destruction and see the transformation as a new expression of how we live so I set the camera to monochrome and I try to see things another way:

 Rocks are solid and look able to withstand anything. The power of wind and water is deceptive.

 Greenery is coming back slowly.

 And the wind keeps blowing.

 Not everyone is on vacation:

Like shorebirds they bend and peck and I can only assume they seek shells to hoard at home and gloat over.

 Until digital photography made collecting easy I never collected anything much. 

Now I collect images and as I stare back at them I wonder when the parks will re-open, when normal will descend on us again.

 The reminders of our trauma  are everywhere:

Keep on keeping on.

Rusty Walks

A few pictures of what I have always enjoyed doing: walking Rusty while hauling my camera:

 I mucked up the focus on this one but I still like it:

 Trails flooding is normal this time of year:

 He doesn't care and I wear Crocs so we walk:

 We  see a lot of this by the side of the highway:

 It looks blocked does this trail but there is a way through with some delicate pushing:

 Not surprisingly the mangroves are much greener than other kinds of plants:

 Non mangroves got pushed over. Lots of force in the that wind.

Homes For The Keys

The official estimate is ten to fifteen thousand homes in the Keys are uninhabitable or severely damaged according to the newspaper. To me, either estimate and the variation does seem rather broad, is unimaginable. Somewhere between a  fifth and a third of Keys homes can't be used. 

FEMA is supposed to be sending trailers but the demand is enormous what with all the disasters hitting the US this hurricane season. I hear much talk of people forced to leave the Keys, of jobs not filled, of lack of staffing after the storm.

The county commissioners are talking about changing rules for house building, easing restrictions, allowing construction in Tier 3 land and other arcane variations on the land use plan. My innate skepticism leads me to wonder cui bono from all this expansion of construction rights. Even well meaning changes to the law lead to unintended consequences.

My skepticism comes from the fact that the term "affordable housing" is wide open. This term is supposed to indicate that some buildings, perhaps as part of a broader development will be devoted to housing people who work and have less to spend. The problem is that the term "affordable" never quite seems to be defined.So constructions height limits are raised "for affordable housing" or previously un-buildable lands are being considered for development "for affordable housing." Yet what that threshold of affordability might be is yet to be explained.

Some affordable housing has been sold around a quarter million dollars with deed restrictions to limit future sales to  qualified applicants. It helps but I don't think it's enough and not accessible enough.

The irony of our situation is that the hospitality industry has a tip mentality and limited wages and health insurance at the lower echelons seems to encourage mobility. Hotels have been rebuilt with worker housing under the eaves as employees come and go. The question is, how do you buy affordable housing on waitstaff salary? And do you want to encourage permanence among the help?

In some high end eateries that may very well be possible and easy even. But in the majority of cases where it isn't, the county is faced with a crying need for decent affordable rental housing. To me the shining example of worker housing is Meridian West (LINK)  on Stock Island built at the direction of developer Ed Swift. 

To me the only realistic solution to  this this problem of housing is to build more complexes exactly  like Meridian West, with parking at the ground floor (risk of flooding I know) and assorted apartments above. It's not cute but it would be comfortable, and accessible and built in Key West or Stock Island would keep commutes short.

There is a lot of public housing in Key West but it is old and not terribly comfortable. You will see open windows and elderly air conditioning units battling the heat of summer.  The issue then becomes public opposition to tall housing structures. There are no easy answers but Key West has settled on a core of wealthy residents full and part time in Old Town and a modern segment of the city housing people dedicated to serving them. Broad generalizations I know but the divide seems to be getting wider as time goes by. And the availability of housing for workers is shrinking.

I may be wrong and I hope I am wrong but pretty soon if you want to live in Key West and get a job your housing choice will be  none or a modern apartment in a soulless complex or a faux Key West home at  a price that will make your eyes water with a commute in proportion.  Hurricane Irma has simply highlighted what was already known, and not acted upon. The longer nothing is done the worse it gets. If you want affordable housing you have to build it and rent it at a price people can pay. Nothing else will work no matter how much you fiddle with regulations and land use plans. If you want affordable housing build it.

Clean Up

City Hall is looking spic and span these days despite the chaos in the city. 

 White Street Pier and the Aids Memorial less so. It's going to take a while for the crews to get around to cleaning the beaches and Higgs Beach streets. I hope the tourists are patient. Perhaps they can go and stare at the pristine city hall...

In the neighborhoods where they fit, that is to say New Town, these monsters have been scooping up mounds of leaves and sawed up trees:

One guy monitors the grabbing at ground level and the other one sits in a bucket seat and operates the arm. Pretty slick.

 In old town you couldn't fit one of these trains so clean up there will take longer.

It's a matter of closing streets here and there, setting up detours and plucking the stuff and shoving it into a much smaller truck. It will take longer.

 There's plenty of foliage to remove:

 This lot came bagged from a hotel:

 And yet, deliberately tossing garbage on the sidewalks still ticks me off. I know it's just force of habit but still. Is this necessary?