Hurricane Worries, Exploding Costs Drive Plunge In FL Keys Population

[hatrack]

KEY WEST, Florida - Spiralling living costs, lingering trauma from past evacuations and fear that one day million-dollar homes could be reduced to rubble or again flooded are driving people out of the vulnerable Florida Keys as another hurricane season looms. While most of Florida experiences one of the country's fastest population growths, the number of people living in the low-lying 180-km (110-mile) island chain at the southern tip of the peninsula is slowly dwindling.

In the last two years, residents have been ordered to evacuate six times up a narrow, mangrove-fringed 200-km (126-mile) road, the Overseas Highway, linking the Florida Keys to the mainland. When Hurricane Wilma swept by on Oct. 24, it flooded about 3,700 of 15,000 homes in Key West with a foot or more of water and destroyed 1,000 cars. Most residents were stunned.

"We're seeing adjustment disorders, post-traumatic stress," said Betsy Langan, assistant director of Womankind Inc., a health services provider. "Because of the hurricanes, people are exhibiting sleeplessness, difficulties in concentration and are feeling hopeless and overwhelmed."

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A recent Monroe County School District poll found that 7 percent of families with school-aged children planned to leave when the school year ends in May. "We can't get nurses, we can't get doctors," said John Dolan-Heitlinger, an advocate for affordable housing for working professionals. On Big Pine Key, resident Pam Henry said she is struggling to pay US$16,000 a year in property taxes and home insurance, and is moving to central Florida.

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http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36248/story.htm

[Radio_Lady]

1. What a sad story! My memories of the Keys in the 1950s is nothing

like this. I feel so sad for my friends all over Florida. We try to visit them in non-hurricane infested months --

Photo is when I was young and in love for the first time, on Sanibel Island, off the west coast of Florida, 1956.



A few years later!!!

[dweller]

3. cool dress in the 50's shot!

nice photos

dp

[msongs]

2. rising sea levels from melting snowpack will flood the place so

anyone speculating on property is gonna lose a bundle.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[phantom power]

4. The Climate Migrations have begun.

New Orleans, now other parts of hurricane alley.

[Boomer]

5. Reality is dawning

Hurricanes are going to get a lot worse before they get better, so the decision to leave the vulnerable Keys is a rational one for anyone who can't afford to replace their home every decade.

As for the millionaires who CAN afford that luxury, eventually they'll get tired of living in an area without working class people to support their lifestyle. No cops, no nurses, no gardeners, no haircutters, no maids, no cooks, no car mechanics. Having to do your own laundry and haul your own trash takes a bit of the edge off the high life.

[gulfcoastliberal]

6. Not just the Keys - NW Florida, too

Pensacola and Gulf Breeze - Panhandle - have a glut of houses on the market and they aren't moving (including my moms beach home). Pensacola Beach is a barrier island and since Opal, Ivan, Dennis, and Katrina it's been bad. Ivan cut the island in two, separating Ft Pickens and the National Seashore; it also destroyed the road to Navarre beach. Both were repaired after Ivan, ony to be taken out by Dennis. We suffered a glancing bow from Katrina - glancing means "only" 100 MPH winds and power out for 4-5 days. I'm going to try to sell my condo and get out, too. We all want out.

[NNadir]

7. That's too bad.

It sounds as if you are among the earliest of the permanent refugees.