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| Some residents are cleaning up the mess in their yards themselves, I would also, it must feel good when it is gone. |
Residents are tackling the cleanup, the trucks and loaders are working around the clock, however, there is a lot of cleanup. It reminds me of when I was growing up in Minnesota, after a blizzard or heavy snowfall, we would make a killing clearing snow and pushing cars out of ditches. The same is going on in Florida right now, landscapers and ambitious teenagers are being hired, anyone with a truck or trailer is actually hired to haul the stuff away. The debris is being hauled to free holding areas, then picked up by contractors on pre-storm agreements and taken to a permanent dump site. 35,000+ residents have taken debris to the collection sites since September 13, when the first one opened, they have dumped over 75,000 cubic yards of the stuff. That's enough sticks, logs, and branches to fill more than five thousand dump trucks if they were lined up bumper to bumper it would stretch for about 24 miles. As we can imagine there are snakes, cats, raccoons, possums and rodents in the mess, just to name a few. Not to get down on Florida but they do have their share of creepy crawlers, there's no disputing that, but give credit to the people, they are doing it. But then people are just getting tired of it being around and want to get back to a normal life. It looks like the cleanup is proceeding OK, people are getting annoyed with the mess, but hey it was and is still a heck of a mess to clean up.
Recovering from a catastrophic event the likes of Irma is a huge undertaking, the decision makers are literally in Florida up to their eyeballs in alligators. One of the issues facing the residents is a spike in their Electric bills, the first one after the storm. Their bills have in some places doubled, others were about one-half of pre-storm bills, what the heck is going on? I sure don't know, I would expect meter problems, especially in the areas that were flooded, the meters are electric and the water is, well, water and it doesn't mix with electricity. It may be a system-wide glitch, they did restore electricity in a very rapid amount of time, A workforce of 20,000 people were brought in from all over the country to help restore power, some complaints of restoration being slow are being heard, I think restoring power to an entire state in a few weeks is a pretty good achievement. However, the increased workforce may be an indicator of one of the items forcing an increase in the utility bills so far received. Link to CBS article on the increase.
The most amazing task accomplished I've heard of is, and anyone who has ever had dealings with this company knows what I'm talking about, Comcast says they have restored service to "virtually all customers." It sounds like a "declare victory" and get the heck out of dodge declaration. I've dealt with them for a week over one problem, they must be a much better organization in Florida.
The Governor has declared the Florida Keys are open for business, tourism is a huge part of the Florida economy, it needs to get up and running as quickly as possible. Winter is when all the "Snowbirds" flock south, in California the Northerners flock to Palm Springs, they are referred to as "Snowbirds", I am guessing they are in Florida as well.
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| The Florida Keys from this to open in one month, I'm impressed. |
After being closed for just over a month, the Naples Zoo has re-opened, free admission for Collier County residents and $5.00 for the rest of the residents of the State. The Zoo is now in the same condition as before the storm, it's actually a monumental achievement, as we recall the winds were 145 miles per hour.
Florida's orange crop has been destroyed, there doesn't appear to be a silver lining in that cloud anywhere. The State lawmakers are trying to find $2.5 billion in federal aid needed to cover the losses encountered by agriculture by Irma if it is not found the citrus industry may collapse. Florida is second in the world in citrus production, first in the world is Brazil. The house passed an aid measure that includes relief for Florida-Texas and Puerto Rico $18.7 billion, $576.5 million for California wildfires and $16 billion for the National Flood Insurance Program. Zero for Florida's Citrus farmers. I personally think it is absolute insanity to ignore any part of our national agriculture programs. The backbone of any Country is farming, we have lost track of that due to the corporate farms taking over great parts of the industry, family farms are the backbone of every country. The Feds need to wake up. Link
A little bit of a catch up on Florida, it appears the recovery is bumping along OK, it's a marathon, not a 50-yard dash, as in all instances of this caliber the residents are spearheading the cleanup efforts. I have noticed in these situations very few people run away from the problems, most run to them, to help, the majority of us want to place ourselves in a positive position, and that position is helping our selves and neighbors because it's the right thing to do. Florida will come back, the orange industry will recover (I hope it's not taken over by corporate farms), the utility bills will be figured out and the teenagers helping haul debris will be buying their pickups and cars with the money they have made helping with the cleanup.
Thanks for reading and sharing, it appears things are getting better at least in Florida, I will look at Puerto Rico next.
jacquesandkate emergencykitsplus.com
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