Saturday, June 14, 2008

Post-hurricanes Martin County (2006 - 2008) -- Errata

Kingswood condominium complex and beyond in Stuart, FL, shows the effects of recent hurricanes and a population still in shock fending off further exploitation.

Trash fills the foliage-dense adjacent lot -- shiny aluminum cans, plastic bottles, styrofoam food containers, various types of wrappers, and broken glass that was strewn about during the intense tropical storms. Because much of the litter appears to be intentionally placed, the hurricane-weary owner of the preserve-type lot does not come over to pick it up, perhaps also leary of the Canadian "snowbird" and "wintering" condo-complex populations who have streamed in anyway after the two major wash-outs, plus those hard-working people who have planned and attained FL retirement; factor in a large population of Californians who have been lured/sent into South Florida to set up international cuisine businesses so as to foster a university atmosphere, and efforts to acquire and/or maintain the lot are clearly more heartache and the trash is a broad hint about land-grab actions.

Because the hurricanes destroyed a significant number of human lives in Martin County, FL, 'missing persons' websites contain a number of listings that indicate persons are yet lying around dead/skeletal in the region -- on land or underwater. A retaining pond behind this multiple condo-complex zone in Stuart, FL, was recently drained so as to search for additional people not yet located; the teeming wildlife population of insects, fish, reptiles and birds quickly returned after the water-pocket-type pond was restored as an influx of the Saint Lucie River mingling with water flow from ditches, canals and altered creek bed.

An e-mail sent to a big-city Florida FBI office was deemed necessary before a child's rusted blue bicycle could be safely removed from the foliage.

Memorial Park in "historic downtown Stuart" lists the names of deceased victims of the storms on a free-standing wall. Paperwork necessary to order work to repave and renovate area roadways has been uncommonly quick.

A group of tree branches overhanging and obstructing the sidewalk on Colorado Street near the intersection with Martin Luther King, Jr, Street have been found lush and rooted in the standing water of an altered creekbed beneath the small bridge that supports both roadway and sidewalks -- and perhaps were the reason that post-storms sudden deaths in the region are being carefully investigated, since a telephone call-demand network remains operational in the region. Can any actions be more cruel than work-demand calls directed at victims of major hurricanes?

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