South Florida is still slowly returning to normal after Hurricane Wilma struck the region on October 24th. But heavy rains on Tuesday caused numerous weakened roofs to collapse according to a Miami Herald article. Thousands of people have been asked to leave their homes. A Sun-Sentinel article
said the number of unsafe buildings just in Broward county has climbed over 2,300. There are still over 500,000 customers without electricity according a page
on the Florida Power & Light website. Below is more coverage from the blogosphere.
Boggles, Bungles, and Greed provides excerpts from a handwritten journal kept during Wilma and post-Wilma. Plus photos.
Narcissistic views on News/Politics lists 23 things learned from Wilma and ten days without power. It is an interesting list that includes battery tips, food suggestions and media criticisms.
Why was there a #2 in Wilma's radar image? Museum of Hoaxes is also reporting on this.
Assorted Babble provides some Wilma damage pictures and links to more. Assorted Babble has an account of Wilma as she came through.
No Such Blog reports on returning to the Florida Keys and seeing the damage first hand: "This storm was the worst the Keys have seen in 70 years -- since the 'Storm of the Century' on Labor Day 1935. The story I am hearing is that the storm surge was delayed - the storm passed and the flooding wasn't bad, and everyone thought we had escaped with no major problems. Then... POW! The whole of the Keys got a 5-8 foot surge."
Blogs here, here,
here and here reported that Depeche Mode's opening night was canceled
thanks to Wilma. Miamity lists a bunch of other canceled Rock concerts.
Critical Miami says post-Wilma traffic is annoying: "Cable is still out at the
Critical Miami bunker, but we really don’t miss it. Everything else is coming
back; heck, even gas is pretty easy to get now. Shockingly annoying, though, is traffic on the ride home. Surface street intersections are a grab-bag of regular traffic lights, dark traffic lights, blinking yellow/red lights (which people insists on treating as 4-way stops, in violation of the law), blocked roads, and intersection with police signalers."
Coconut Grove says Halloween lacked its usual frivolity in downtown Grove.
A Raw Story article raises some alarming concerns about any elderly people that have been trapped in high-rise buildings for the past ten days with no electricity.
Karen, an event planner living in Miami-Dade, still feels the shock of the storm, nine days after it hit. With little relief from FEMA or the state, helping out with day to day survival needs has fallen to other residents, who themselves are struggling to get by.
"I tried to get around to help out, but I have to conserve gas," she told RAW STORY on Sunday, a week after Wilma, a previously category 5 hurricane that had weakened to a category 3 before it made landfall in Florida, caused severe damage to South Florida’s gold coast.
The people who appear to be the most affected in the aftermath of this disaster are
the elderly, the poor, and minorities.
"Wait until people start finding bodies rotting inside their homes," she said.
Wikipedia
lists the total death toll from Wilma at 47 with 22 deaths in Florida.
