I’ve told myself I’d retire from the discussion of natural disasters here, because the scope is far beyond a modest cartoon blog. Hurricanes in particular became fodder here, you will recall, only because I happened to have had personal experience with Katrina. However, because of that experience, I have been struck by one thing: so many of the Caribbean islands and the Florida Keys are virtually denuded of leafy foliage in the wake of Irma. One might be tempted to think, “Well, at least that will grow back.” One could be forgiven for assuming palms and coastal live oaks are naturally adapted to a capricious environment and have an abnormally hardy capacity to rebound. Not necessarily. Many of the trees stripped by wind and by storm surge will never recover. They are dead. Not a good thing in the tropical sun.
