Six months out from the storm. I'm getting back to the blog. While I was incommunicado, Key West was piling up heaps of storm debris. Waste Managment took that away. Then we piled up refrigerators, dishwashers, big screen TVs, water heaters and other appliances trashed in the storm. WI took that away. Then the piles of dry wall, sodden cabinets and delaminated doors grew up and WI took them away. Now in front of houses, instead of debris, there are FEMA trailers while folks replace interiors flooded by salt water and blue tarp roofs.
My household did better than most actually because, as a floating home, we floated and so didn't have any ocean in the living room. We had dock damage and our wonderful Toyota Previa was among the 80% of keys cars that were totaled in the saltwater surge, but we didn't have to rip our carpets and drywall.
Saltwater
Saltwater does quirky things with electricity. After the storm Key West had 40 electric pole fires as the salt conducted power strangely during a rain. Our dock power was overwashed and my husband had to carefully clean the circuit breakers to keep us on steady power.
Cars
As I mentioned, cars suffered in the flood. We were dealer-tag city for a while. The Overseas Highway hosted a steady stream of car carriers bringing new cars down and carting trashed cars out. Now there are lots of shiny new cars (it's too risky to buy a used one) and lots of brand new debt (insurance never seems to do it all).
We bought a van from our friend Stevie because we knew its history -- and Stevie does great maintenance, but my husband had to fly to New York (mid-winter) to get it.
Trees
Our gorgeous tropical jungle has been sadly changed. The trees were whipped by storms four times last year, and they are exhausted. The palms are drooping and the leafy trees were stripped bare so many times, they gave up trying to replicate spring. Now they are producing silly little tufts of leaves close to the trunk with bare twigs above. This means no shade as the weather heats up.
In addition, many trees didn't make it at all. One poinciana and a gumbo limbo in our yard are dead. They were the ones closest to the water. The ficus, that had all its topsoil (or what passes for it here in the keys) washed away down to bare roots seems to be making a slow recovery.
Small plants were washed out in droves. Lots of us just threw seeds out to see what would grow on its own and give us some time to get around to landscaping.
Taxes, Insurance
Taxes were depressing when we totalled up all our losses, but the worst is the insurance. Once again, as a houseboat, we did better than most here because no one will insure a houseboat. Landlubbers with mortgages are trapped in insurance hell as the various sorts (windstorm, flood...) raise premiums double the already pricey rate paid in the keys. The Keynoter newspaper quoted on its front page May 10, one agent whose clients' windstorm "went up from $4,400 to $11,400." A grassroots organization has sprung up to fight the increases.
Dread
So now we are less than a month away from the 2006 hurricane season and the island population is struggling to manage anxiety. Some businesses are closing, some folks are moving. We suspect that as soon as the school year ends, more will move. It's not just the storms, either. My friend Jill said today that just the threat of a storm cuts into the economics. If you have to evacuate, you lose several days work and run up expenses, even if the storm misses us. If there is clean-up involved, then more expense, more time lost and more days without tourists accumulate.
Half my stuff
We're pretty much committed to the area, so its anxiety management for us. Meanwhile, I'm packing boxes with my books, photos, precious items, some clothes and duplicate file records to drive up north later this month and put in storage outside the hurricane zone. Then, if I'm wiped out here, I still have something left.
Got my fingers crossed.
The Good Part
Key West is small and it's easy to help each other. After the storm, there were very few behavior problems. In fact, when the merchandise at the K-Mart got washed out into the nearby neighborhood, people brought it back and stacked it in the parking lot. When cars conked out, passersby would stop and help. We gave each other lifts and shared water and food. Mostly people were patient with one another while we waited for the semi at the high school parking lot to arrive with water.
The day after the storm roared through and we were still reeling, Mama's Flowers took their inventory of blossoms and left them in buckets around town with a hand-written sign, "Compliments of Wilma."
There was a cozy tenderness for the most part. That's what makes it paradise!