Ed,
How was Marathon? Dorsey talks about it being the closest place to him (Summerland Key) with a store or gas station operating.
j
Well, Jim, Marathon was mostly up and running but it's not 100%. In the town area itself along US 1 which is the commercial area where the airport is, some buildings are still closed and others have their lit signs blown out (for example Burger King had a vinyl sign with the logo draped over the blown out lit sign shell).
If your buddy is on Summerland Key which is down around mm25, then he has to haul all the way north across Seven Mile Bridge to get up to Marathon which is maybe a 15 mile run. That explains why it was so crowded at the Marathon Publix grocery store when I stopped in there today. Cars were circling the parking lot because there were no empty spaces. Nearly every checkout line was running and the place was packed with shoppers. They also have a Home Depot store which was open and operating.
What I wasn't prepared for, honestly, was the amount of debris pushed up on the side of US 1. Some of it is building debris (wood, sheet rock, roofing, timbers, etc. all crumbled up in piles) and some of it is plant/vegetation (downed limbs, dug out stumps, palm fronds, dirt and sand debris). Along the residential keys leading into Marathon the debris piles are almost constant on one side or the other. There are torn up appliances, toilets, and junk piles too. At Islamorada and above which is mm73 and higher at Matacumbe Key, there is hardly any debris. It may not have been bad to start with or already been cleared.
But below mm73 which is the town of Layton and Long Key, it's like a switch was flipped and the debris piles start immediately. That is also the side that bore the brunt of the rotation when the eye crossed around Big Pine Key at mm37. Trees are nearly stripped of their leaves (palm trees did okay) so it's like winter when you look at the condos through the trees for example, all you see are empty limbs in between.
The highlight of the day was visiting the Dolphin Research Center (its claim to fame is that is where the 1963 movie "Flipper" filmed its underwater and dolphin stunt scenes). Well worth the cost of admission. At each "show" they thanked us for coming and visiting. They said they were closed for a month due to storm repairs and then when they reopened the tourists were slow to come back.
Two other Irma related things I've heard down here. First, residential building codes for most homes require a rebuild/build up on stilts (off the ground) even if the former home was on a slab. So that adds to the building cost. Second, the lack of affordable housing (slab and ground floor dwellings, trailer parks, mobile home parks, etc.) means people who work for lower wages in the tourism or service industry don't have places they can live. They were destroyed in the storm and are not being replaced quickly enough or allowed at all.
It's going to be a long road to full recovery. But they're making progress.
Bama Ed
.
. If you exit out the far end of the parking lot opposite the end where the overflow field is, does anyone know what the large land clearing / drainage project is for?
