“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” - Douglas Adams
Schools were cancelled across most of Central Florida again today. Too many places had no power or flooding to make it safe to transport using buses.
Fay is finally heading out of the area, maybe. Who knows with this one. She may decide to turn back on come here again. Even on her way out, though, it is still raining, raining, raining.
Personally, I thought they should have closed schools yesterday. I fought my car most of the way home yesterday. At times, winds were so strong that it seemed my car was going to change lanes against my will.
I’m including a picture of part of the lake one street behind my house. In the front of the picture is a stream that is normally about 3 feet lower than seen in the picture. In the mid-upper region of the picture you can see some plant life just above the water. Those plants are on a spit of land. The plants height is normally a good 3 feet above the water line.
I’m sure that there isn’t a single resident in Florida that doesn’t wish that tropical storm Fay would just go away already. We have flooding and wind damage and homes destroyed due to tornados and Fay doesn’t look she’s going anywhere any time soon.
Most of this damage had been occuring on the east coast of Central Florida. We’ve been getting lots and lots of rain here but no flooding to the extent Brevard County has seen.
Fay has been moving at a snails pace. This has resulted in 2 feet of rain in some areas. The ground just can’t handle that much rain and neighborhoods have been flooding. People have shot pictures of catfish swimming in their yards and an alligator was swimming through one neighborhood. The alligator has been taken away.
Click here to see some of the pictures that people have taken.
In 2004, school started and was in session for less then a week when hurricane Charley decided to come visiting. This year it is Tropical Storm Fay that is expected to hit this area sometime tomorrow or Wednesday.
School started today for most counties in Central Florida. Most of these counties have closed their public schools for tomorrow. We won’t know if we’re back in session on Wednesday until tomorrow afternoon.
There are some important differences between Charley and Fay. Charley was a level 3 hurricane when it hit Florida’s shores. It was also very, very fast. Fay is still just a tropical storm. It might be a level 1 hurricane when it hits Florida’s southwest coast tomorrow morning. It’s also moving slowly and a bit erratically.
For a while it looked like Fay would just skirt the coast of Florida. Now it looks like it hit between Sarasota and Naples.
Hopefully this is a one day only event for the entire hurricane season. I definitely don’t want to get into the school starts/school’s on hold cycle that happened in 2004.
Alan Grayson is running for the Democratic candidate for the 8th district of Congress. The position he is running for is currently held by Ric Keller. Keller is best know for the “Cheeseburger Bill” and well, not much else. At least, not much when it comes to his work in Congress.
But Ric Keller is for another post.
Alan Grayson has been fighting against contractor fraud for more than 16 years. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, he’s been battling against the no-bid contractors and the Department of Justice. One case involves a refrigerator truck that KBR was using to hold bodies of Iraqis. The bodies had been in the truck for two weeks in the Iraqi heat without refrigeration. Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty. Now, refrigerator trucks can be used to hold bodies, but then they can never be used to carry food or ice. KBR, however, continued to use this particular truck to carry ice.
Yeah, gross. And any ice or food carried on that truck becomes a bio-hazard. You can read more about this case and other cases in a Vanity Fair article.
I found a new tv ad that Grayson has put out over on Daily Kos. It looks great.
In case you haven’t figured it out, I plan on voting for Grayson. If you want to help Grayson out, please visit Act Blue or Grayson’s campaign website.
