This Week on the Island: This Week on the Island 10/07/2017

‘This Week on the Island’ is written by Doug Bennett and is an update to friends about happenings in Key West last week. Everything is true except for those parts that are lies.

The Weather: Hurricane Irma has come and gone a left a mess

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I needed to be in Miami for complete knee replacement surgery on Thursday, 7 September, at 7:30 AM. The appointment was cancelled due to Hurricane Irma.

At the time the hurricane was headed to Miami so we went back to Key West. The hurricane followed us. We had winds of over 140 MPH with gust up to 175 MPH. For the next 2 weeks there was no communication with the outside world. No water, no electricity, no food, etc. No water means you can’t flush the john. It gets pretty bad. No electricity means no A/C and all your food goes bad in 3 days. That adds to the smell. You put stuff in plastic bags and set it outside to rot in the hot tropical sun. That just adds to the smell of the seaweed, dead birds, and other animals that didn’t make it.

I slept on the front porch in a lounge chair and would wake at 3 AM and it is still HOT and lots of humidity and not a breeze in sight. Let's not forget the bug bites.

We were lucky. Our house was complete. We could clean-up and still live here. Water and electricity came back. We got communication with the outside world and my surgery was rescheduled for Sept 28^th back in Miami.

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