Star Island by Carl Hiaasen (book trailer)

Key West Literary Seminar 2009

What a difference (during hurricane season) a day makes

As recently as Memorial Day, the water levels of Lake Okeechobee were at a record low; now authorities are draining the lake to prevent the possibility of flooding South Florida.

As any student of Florida history knows, the storm surge from the lake poses a threat to life and property almost as severe as if it were the coast. Turn your back on the lake in a wet season at your peril; of course, if humans weren't building in places where they have no business being in the first place, maybe Nature knows what's it's doing.

Unfortunately, humans aren't going to go away any time soon, so Nature will take it's course, and if they have any intelligence, the humans in the path of its fury will learn to get out of the way.



Even if none of the storms this season make a direct hit on the Florida peninsula, eventually one -or two, or three-- will. And you thought Katrina (or Andrew) was something, well, just hold on to your hats...

Actually, to look at the projected landfall of the next few storms, finding a dry place in Florida will be like trying to find an honest politician in Miami.

This is just the kind of thing that they make you take off your shoes at the airport for... and no, Raul and Fidel didn't do it*

All day, the story has been growing: from the hundreds of thousands to a million, to four million affected...

The last account I read acknowleged cascading blackouts from Tampa to Key West to Jacksonville. Some only had their power offline for a few minutes. Some are, um, still waiting for FP & L to get to them. And this was in good weather.

It could have been worse: they might have sent in FEMA.









*That doesn't mean they aren't having a good laugh over it