Florida report

Here I am on the Florida East Coast, violating the first rule of my vacation by blogging!

Well, there's a two hour delay, and there's free WiFi, so what else can I do?

Everyone's talking about the hurricane damage, but there's none to be seen here, because the storm hit the West Coast. One thing struck me while on descent: the place looks like Venice -- built on water. Canals and swamps everywhere. All you need is a little more water, and voila! No more land.

Someone who elevates common sense over reality opined that people really "shouldn't be living here."

Well, they are.

And there's nature and all that. I'm not a moralistic scold, and I think people should live wherever they want, and do whatever they want so long as it doesn't hurt others. Hey, we all take chances with nature.

"Acts of God," don't you know. Someone wrote something about the "laws of nature" into the Declaration of Independence, but I can't imagine that being interpreted to say we can't alter nature, or that it isn't our nature to alter nature. Because it is in our nature to alter nature.

I don't believe that "Nature's God" is punishing anyone, and I hope all those affected by these two hurricanes can bounce back!

UPDATE: Nice image here (although my location is not visible in the picture.)

And here's a cool story from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution about the value of blogs in reporting hurricane news (login required, so I will try to quote generously):

Blogs go on amid storm

Hurricane doesn't stop Web diarists

By MARLON MANUEL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/13/04

Neither wind nor rain nor Hurricane Charley could shut down the bloggers.

Cyberdiarists on Florida's west coast continued to send their dispatches to the Internet Friday afternoon, even as Charley surged toward them.

Sample blogs
Hatcher's Hack
Nick's Big Adventure
WeatherBug
Sticks of Fire

"We are noticing damage being done to surrounding structures to this building right now, through the exterior video cameras," Ryan Towell wrote at 3:42 p.m. from an emergency center in Cape Coral, barely 20 minutes before Charley came ashore.

Towell blogged for WeatherBug (weatherbug.blogs .com), an independent weather network.

"The wind just gusted to a peak of 90 miles per hour. The trees are still bent and the rain is falling in buckets," wrote Towell, who minutes later posted a report of a tornado sighting.

He lost power and communication just before 4 p.m. but posted again just before 5 p.m.

Web logs — blogs — are personal journals posted to the Internet.

The computer-based communication form created a buzz last month when political bloggers covered the Democratic National Convention.

Several other bloggers reading Towell's dispatches asked how the area was doing and thanked him for his work.

"Any word from Fort Myers Beach?" wrote someone named Ellen. "My parents have a house out there, and thankfully they are up north for the summer. We need as much info as possible on damage. Thanks."

On Thursday, political blogger Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit.com) posted an e-mail from a friend in Tampa who wrote, "We are under mandatory evacuation but for the time being we and many of our neighbors are sticking tight."

That prompted the Tennessee-based Reynolds to ask online, "Is anybody blogging this down there?"

On Friday, a Sarasota resident responded.

"Charley seems to be fickle," blogged "Hatcher's Hack" (www.hatchershack .com) at 1:35 p.m. Friday as the hurricane strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico. "Winds are picking up and now recorded at 145 mph. That moves it into a Cat 4 status. Along with the windspeed, momentum is also increasing: the storms going to hit perhaps two hours ahead of previous estimates."

In Tampa, "Jen" (www .crazyisland.net) on Friday morning expressed her regrets about not being better prepared.

"We didn't board the windows. We couldn't. . . . I hope our house doesn't get destroyed. Sigh."

I hope it didn't/doesn't too, and I am glad to see the blogosphere in action. ("When there's trouble in the stratosphere" or something.....)

MORE: Had to do some link repair. (Had to add links manually; I found the above story in hard copy in a newspaper at the Atlanta airport.)

posted by Eric on 08.14.04 at 10:53 AM





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