Hurricane Wilma has left my Hometown a Mess!
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I’m continually being suprised at the wind damage and overall messs that Hurricane Wilma has caused. One of the worst areas hit is were I grew up and my family still lives. National news coverage is covering streets and areas that I’ve been through countless times. And, I’m up here in Orlando with plans to be down there next weekend to visit and take care of some business.
There is one thing that I really don’t understand though. I was there during Andrew and the wind speed was about 20MPH higher in Fort Lauderdale. Wilma was a much, much bigger storm (considering the amount of space that it covered), but even with the lower wind speed it did far worse damage than Andrew in that area. The wind and low pressure actually blew out the windows of high-rise office buildings downtown.
This storm came over the state with the south side of the eye-wall bearing down on The Everglades. This side of the eye-wall is the most intense area of hurricanes. Seeing as The Everglades is pretty much warm swamp and brush that didn’t seem to do much to slow it down. My parents live in the Davie/Weston area, which used to be The Everglades before it was developed into residential sub-divisions. All kinds of sub divisons. Multi-million dollar homes, large acreage farms, trailer parks and typical neighborhoods. And by the way, it’s a basin. When it rains hard there, the low-lying land does a pretty good job of collecting water and it floods pretty well.
It shouldn’t take too much to figure out that Hurricane Wilma cruised straight across The Everglades and rocked that whole area. Thank God it was moving very fast and didn’t take the time to dump a ton of rain. Thank God there was this nice cold front that moved in right afterwords. And, Thank God that a lot of the community in South Florida is ready to step up when these storms roll through and pitch in to help out. Stores like Publix, Winn Dixie and Walgreens open up as quickly as they can and really bust their asses to help everyone else. That’s a good corporate policy. I’ve noticed it since I was a kid and now that I’m older they get my business all year round…. every week.
I still plan to be down there this weekend if I can get into town. Maybe my plans will just be a bit different from what I expected. Now, I might be bringing as many supplies as I can fit around me and the dog. Hopefully essentials will be back up and running down there miraculously fast.
If you’ve never been through or around an area after a hurricane has come through, it’s hard to explain the experience. You see a lot of really tough things, and people going through tough times… but you also see the very best come out in a lot of people. In a funny way that really helps to balance it all out.
My Mom has always been one to freak out every hurricane season and drive us nuts making sure there are 18 boxes of water and plenty of supplies in the garage. Thank God for that too!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 in the early afternoon and is filed under News and Politics, Events, Places, South Florida, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Hurricane Wilma, Palm Beach, Weather. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site, and you can follow any responses to this entry through the feed for the Comments via RSS.
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MEDIAFLUSH » Blog Archive » Hurricane Wilma socks it to South Florida says:
October 25th, 2005 / in the early afternoon
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