Been a couple of days now since I have stopped obsessing about Hurricane Irma with all-night Internet binges trying to get news from Miami. Some brief relief came with a Stockton Record article ("Thousands get their Greek on at popular festival") reporting on the 58th St.Basil's Greek Festival -- and with a picture of good friend Gayle Maduros continuing my mom's legacy of quality control in the sweets department :)
Meanwhile my friends here in Greece were asking me daily if I had any news from my friends in Miami. They had been watching with horror the destruction being wreaked by the giant "typhonas." No storms like that here -- even though Climate Change brought one of the coldest winters on record throughout Greece last year and searing heat all summer. And Greeks are well-aware of what President Trump thinks about Climate Change. (I totally HATE being asked about Donald Trump!)
On the one hand, I was lucky not to actually be in Miami going through all the preparation and angst associated with a Cat 5 hurricane. Yes, I have been through a few hurricanes, but not the infamous Andrew. As I saw Irma develop, I was both terrified and feeling guilty about not being there.Amazingly, I could tune into CBS4 Miami local news online -- but not without being forced to watch a VW ad at least 100 times. In the end it was a small price to pay for updates I could relate to, like rivers of water rushing down Brickell Avenue and the attempted looting of my favorite Publix on Biscayne and 17th Terrace. "Reality TV" made palatable only by no big wind damage in Miami as far as I could see...unless you count 3 downed cranes.
Devastation in the Keys was something else, largely unspeakable. Good Samaritans are collecting food and emergency supplies to drive down there if they can. The FL West Coast is much more flooded. Many places still have no electricity. 8 seniors perished in a Hollywood nursing home because of no AC. There are continued curfews and boil water orders. Paradise lost on a grand scale.
And here I sit on a gorgeous Greek day in town of about 20,000 people in Macedonia, trying to digest what has happened a world away -- feeling safe and even happy to be in what is essentially a bankrupt country. Thinking, too, that there is something not right with this picture.
But for now I'm just glad to have good news, in the realm, from Miami.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.
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