December 13 , 2005 | Vol. 2 Issue 10
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Archive of past issues, hurricane news, funky links, odds and ends — not quite a site map, but enough to navigate your way around.
Bob Mayo’s CHS site contains links to other CHS-related sites, along with plenty of individual information.
July 20, 1969
How time flies. July 20th, 2004 - the day after our official launch - was the 35th anniversary of 1969’s Apollo 11 and astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first walk on the moon! We were with friends in Gainesville, gathered around a b&w portable t.v., listening to Walter Cronkite broadcast the event on CBS.
Our playgrounds were beaches, rivers, and orange groves. Going to the Big City meant a run over to Orlando’s Steak ’n Shake or Ronnie’s, on Colonial. Remember Florida before air conditioning? Or how it felt waiting for the bus when the mosquito control spray planes fogged the whole county? Say, wasn’t that...DDT?
For us, the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air most likely meant another launch that went haywire, ending up with someone hitting the destruct button and another million bucks of rocket up in smoke. The eyes of the world were on us — and life was great.
©MMV/cocoahigh65.com
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There seems to be no end to the delight taken by acquaintances around the country in sending along the latest popular humor relating to the impact hurricanes have been having on our state as of late.
Sharp-eyed readers will recognize this variation of my Fort Plywood headline posted last year, which was inspired by Charley’s pending impact on the local Blockbuster video store.
The put-up take-down cycle of structural sheathing would continue throughout 2005, as Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas got walloped in varying degrees from July through October.
What we can say with certainty is the after Katrina’s assault, any doubts as to what the National Hurricane Center’s oft repeated warnings of storm surge destruction actually means have been thoroughly dispelled. Just ask Biloxi.
So we bring this year to a close with a short collection of the best of the submissions, with the hope that next year (already predicted as being not quite the equal of ’05, but that in itself is cold comfort) arrives without the excitement of the past two and leaves minus the drama.
If any of the expressions are familiar, well, we understand.
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I happen to think government’s response to the plight of New Orleans especially before, during, and after Katrina has been shameful, even as many areas of the South continue to suffer months after the storms, and the storms from previous years, have passed. The no-questions-asked commitment to rebuild the Santa Monica freeway after the Northridge quake now seems almost quaint. By comparison, it was just a portion of the interstate. Another time, another event. As we count down towards a sobering new year, New Orleans continues to stagnate, mold, and atrophy, absent the money – make that national will – to rebuild the core elements necessary for a city's recovery. We’ve seen plenty of storm generated destruction elsewhere, and know there’s much to be done even in Florida. But if we accept the basic premise that without a levee New Orleans as a metro area won’t survive, then that fact sets that city well apart from the damages wrought throughout the southeast. Here’s part of what the New York Times had to say about New Orleans’ fate in a December 11, 2005 editorial. from the New York Times… Death of an American City We said this wouldn’t happen. President Bush said it wouldn’t happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles. There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don’t believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city. At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the president’s liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need to understand that for New Orleans the words "pending in Congress" are a death warrant requiring no signature. The rumbling from Washington that the proposed cost of better levees is too much has grown louder. Pretending we are going to do the necessary work eventually, while stalling until the next hurricane season is upon us, is dishonest and cowardly. Unless some clear, quick commitments are made, the displaced will have no choice but to sink roots in the alien communities where they landed. Excerpted from the NY Times editorial November 11, 2005. |
You Might Be A Floridian If...
You have more than 20 C and D batteries in your kitchen drawer. (Ed. note: let us not forget, automobiles are excellent sources of temporary air conditioning, and the radios within are vastly superior to WalMart’s $5.99 “storm special” AM-FM throwaway.)
The freezer in your garage is full of homemade ice. (Ed. note: ice contained in salvaged gallon water jugs is excellent for easy transport, and for refrigerating the non-functional refrigerator, in itself a source of warm memories rekindled by flashback references to such early 20th century conveniences as the “ice box.”)
You flinch when you’re introduced to a person named Charley, Frances or Ivan.
You find yourself dropping words like "Millibar" and "Convection"
into
everyday conversation.
Your pantry contains more than 10 cans of Spaghetti Os.
Making coffee on your propane grill does not seem like an odd thing
to
do. (Ed. note: there’s a nifty little camping/tabletop cooking butane fueled single burner available for not much money that does an excellent job of the coffee heating, and is more than capable of additional cooking chores.)
You’re thinking of repainting your house to match the plywood
covering your windows.
When describing your house to a prospective buyer, you say it has
three bedrooms, two baths and one safe place.
You’re on a first-name basis with the cashier at Home Depot.
You’re delighted to pay $3 for a gallon of unleaded.
The road leading to your house has been declared a No-Wake Zone.
You decide that your patio furniture looks better on the bottom of
the
pool.
You have the number for FEMA on your speed dialer.
You own more than three large coolers.
You can wish that other people get hit by a hurricane and not feel
the
least bit guilty about it.
Three months ago you couldn’t hang a shower curtain; today you can
assemble a portable generator by candlelight.
You catch a 5-pound catfish- In your driveway.
You can recite from memory whole portions of your homeowner’s
insurance policy.
At cocktail parties, women are attracted to the guy with the biggest
chain saw.
You have had tuna fish more than 5 days in a row.
There’s a roll of tar paper in your garage.
You can rattle off the names of three or more meteorologists who
work at The Weather Channel.
Someone comes to your door to tell you they found your roof.
Ice is a valid topic of conversation.
Relocating to North Dakota doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea. (Ed. note: one of my media reps takes huge delight in e-mailing me accounts of what it’s like in the midst of the current blizzard/sub-arctic conditions in South Dakota. Says he’s got plenty of firewood for much beloved minus six temperature spurts.)
And finally, one I thought I’d toss in:
Everyone on the street knows who’s got the new chainsaw. (I just replaced my trusty Craftsman with an uber horsepower Stihl model.)