09-07-05

We are high and dry.  We had a rough time of it during Katrina, but kept our power even though it went off about 20 times and came back on, thank goodness, right away. We were switched to a main server line with our own transformer back when I was put on an oxygen generating machine and this really saved our skin this storm. The old wires would have gone out for sure. Our cable wires came down and we lost a lot of limbs from our trees and 2 sapling mango trees that were about 15 feet tall. The ground is so soft right now it squishes beneath my feet like walking on a black sponge. I have mulched back into the earth all the leaves and grass clippings and my yard is so healthy because of it. A little microcosm in the midst of an urban concrete jungle.

 After two days of constant rain, Bill decided that we were in for a change of scenery while this area dug out from all the trees down and flooding all around in various neighborhoods and off we went up north to Saint Lucie for the rest of that weekend. Up there we were just above the feeder bands of Katrina and enjoyed soaking up the sun at the road runner rv park. On Sunday the feeder bands once again started to hit where we were and we jumped back into the motorhome and came home where we were greeted with sunshine. Broward county was now getting back to normal but south Dade county was flooded and really a mess. Every home in my area still has a huge mound of broken debris in front of it and mine is not the exception. My lawn man really had a tough job of getting mine back to some semblance of order. He ended up with a 4X4X8 foot pile of limbs and other twig debris from my trees in front of our house. Bill and I couldn't do it. Without Miguel it wouldn't get done at all.

 These storms really make me wonder about the smarts of those that control our electric power in the state of Florida. There are still many homes south of us that do not have power as I write this. The line men for our power company took off for New Orleans leaving thousands of customers here without power. The Home Depot about 5 miles from us, where my daughter works, didn't have power until just last Friday. It is worse down in south Miami. I really question why all the wires aren't underground here like they put them in Barry County Michigan. It took just one bad ice storm to help this happen. They saw that the trees damaged the lines so they just trenched them underground and since then haven't had the storm related loss of power since. Here they just stick them back up and raise the rates because they have had to do it. The power fails here at the drop of a hat because of that mental attitude.

 I have also been wondering if the government would wake up to the fact down here in the south that they should follow suit what the north has done in the past to areas that are disaster flood prone. The government in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri have all bought the land from those hit more than twice along the flood planes of the Mississippi River and made them into public recreation areas. That is what should be done to New Orleans. What used to be in that bowl like area is no longer safe for the population density that the USA has now as compared to the past. It is folly to drain and reclaim that area for it will continue to happen more often since we are into global warming with no light at the end of that tunnel. Just my opinion for what it is worth.

 Right now Bill is watching what will be Ophelia and telling me to be on the ready to move on out in the motorhome if it looks like it is going to do more than rain on us. Around here all our attitudes have been sort of blas� about hurricanes but after seeing how fast and furious Katrina became he has decided that we are not going to chance that here and are going to high tail it out of here if anything looks like it might hit here. We have thought nothing of even a cat 3 here in the past for this house is rated for winds of 135 MPH but not all that storm surge. With lake Okeechobee up north of us we are in the same boat as New Orleans in respect to storm surge. No thank you says Bill. We are out of here with our pets Forget possessions. They are just that. I must say I would miss my computer for sure. Maybe I could find a little room in the toe-hold of the motorhome! LOL