MONROE COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT LEADS ANNUAL STATEWIDE HURRICANE EXERCISE FOR THE KEYS
MARATHON, FL – Monroe County Emergency Management led the Annual Statewide Hurricane Exercise for Monroe County on Tuesday, May 1, 2018, at the Marathon Government Center. This building also serves as Monroe County’s Emergency Operations Center.
Seventy-two people from about 20 federal, state and local agencies participated. The County conducted the exercise in conjunction with the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Monroe County Emergency Management and other responding agencies have taken lessons learned from Hurricane Irma and used them to update hurricane plans for the 2018 hurricane season. The new hurricane season begins in only a month on June 1.
Now is a good time for residents and business owners to review their own hurricane plans and update them as needed.
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MATECUMBE DUMB CANAL BLOCKED?
It’s too bad that the luxury vacation houses on beautiful Sunset Drive can’t get their yachts into their private docks during low tide since hurricane Irma washed some sand into the mouth of their sandy canal. Google Earth shows the canal remains deep enough for skiffs.
Those houses were wrongy built a few feet above high tide on a sand dune on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. They block the view of, and the access to, that lovely tropic shore. They paid to own that shoreline and to remove it from public usage.
The fault for the canal blockage can be laid on the county land use regulations for stupidly permitting ANY buildings there. The fault can be laid on to the developers who callously disregarded the vulnerability of the product they were putting on the market. And the fault can be laid on the owners who could see the sea and the shifting sands on their doorsteps.
But who are the [mostly wealthy, mostly absentee] owners petitioning to pay for the dredging of the sand from their foolish canal? They’re crying “poor” and demanding that you and me, through the office of FEMA, use our tax dollars to bail them out.
This is typical of the stinginess of the owning class who want public moneys to assist their luxury housing while denying public funding for workers’ basic shelter! Let THEM bear the burden of their OWN folly.