Sunday, September 26

Jeanne Damage: $8 Billion

Damn, these things are ugly. Florida's got to be fed up. I never understood the attraction of the place - sweaty, humid, hot, muggy, lots of old drivers, LONG traffic lights, rotten vote counting and of course, the occasional badass wind and rain.

I found a picture from the Negril.com post-Ivan gallery, and found a pic which looked awfully familiar. Sure enough, I had taken virtually the same shot from my motorbike a year ago. This is my pic of West End Road in front of Hotel Samsara last November:



...and the same stretch of road shortly after Ivan hit.



Note that toppled trees aside, most of the overhead foliage is just plain gone. We're a month away from returning. We're hearing that the cleanup and recovery are uncharacteristically rapid - we have friends who built homes there...it's generally a l-o-n-g process. Ought to be an interesting trip, but one we're still eagerly looking forward to.