One of my favorite places in the world is taking it on the chin this morning. That would be the armpit of Florida, although I think the tourism people prefer “Big Bend.” It’s the sparsely populated—relative to the rest of the Sunshine State—stretch of coast between Apalachicola and Cedar Key. Slow-moving tropical storm Debby is centered in the gulf south of Apalachicola, pushing lots of water counterclockwise, into the Big Bend. Even though Debby is not even a hurricane, this kind of almost stationary storm can do a lot of damage. Piers and shoreside buildings are washed away from days of high surf. Major flooding from rain and surge occurs along estuaries and rivers.

In 2005, Hurricane Dennis hit this same area. Dennis was a major storm, but we were told by weather reporters that damage was minimal, because it missed major population areas. I suppose it was, compared to what might have been if the storm had hit a city directly, but I was astonished when I saw for myself a couple of months later. There was a lot of damage of the nature I mentioned above. That damage is being rebuilt even today. I hope the area fares better this week.