Hurricane Irma destroyed many oceanfront businesses, such as this Islamorada bar. (Photo By Dan Campbell/The Citizen)

After providing documentation such as proof of residency or business ownership, Florida Keys residents started streaming back yesterday into the Upper Keys, including Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada. The Lower Keys, including the chain’s most distant and most populous island, Key West, are still off-limits, with a roadblock in place at Mile Marker 75 on US 1.

While the Keys are studded with mansions and beachfront resorts, more than thirteen percent of the people live in poverty. They face big obstacles as the cleanup begins. They are the ones who live on sailboats on the hook off shore or in low lying mobile home parks. These are the people who bag our groceries. They are the bus drivers, hotel cleaners, cooks, dishwashers, hair dressers, cashiers, and day laborers. They were already living beyond paycheck to paycheck. Many now have nothing left including jobs, since many small Keys buinesses have been utterly wiped out physically.

Irma shoved people beyond deparation. It may get crazy pretty quickly unless housing and income assistance arrive in the form of FEMA trailers and so on. With upwards of 25% of Keys homes destroyed and 90% having sustained some damage, Monroe County’s 79,000 people are at the precipice of a jobless and homelessness crisis. Most working class county residents did not have property insurance of any kind.

I learned long ago that good things come from adversity if we learned from the past.
After I joined the Navy I never saw much good in the flood waters when they caused me and mine to leave home.
But when the waters went down, I found that they had washed in a load of new challenges
across my family’s path. The following year we had overcome them and were stronger for it.

Damaged homes in Key West’s houseboat row (Key West Citizen)

This is one of those moments . . .

Islamorada Key trailer park wiped out by Hurricane Irma
(Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

How high’s the water?
Two feet high and risin’
How high’s the water?
Two feet high and risin’

After that first big storm we made it to dry land if we left soon enough
Cars couldn’t make it through flood waters – they just wouldn’t float
It’s already over all the sea oats by the road,
Three feet high and risin’

Well, the leaves are gone
We’ve lost the birds
Key West’s chickens are clingin
To the mahogony trees
Trucks floating by in water up past their wheels
Four feet high and risin’

Damn, come look through the window pane,
The buses aren’t coming to take us to the mainland
Looks like we’re stuck again with a lot more rain
Five feet high and risin’

Well, the road out of the Keys gonna get washed out north of town
We gotta keep heading for higher and drier ground
We can’t come back till the water goes down
Six feet high and risin’

Well, it’s didn’t stop comin’ until it was fourteen feet high and risin’
Cudjoe, Big Pine and the Middle Keys were picked clean across the horizon
Conchs will survive as we always do

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