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I just got this missive from a friend in Florida:
Look for the Tallahassee Democrat Online, today's edition, and look at the pics of remaining damage in the Pensacola area. Cristy's father ran the Tiki in the 70s and would let us stay in the honeymoon suite whenever the place was not full so we could lounge in the pool; none of those rooms are habitable four months after the storm. The intramural ball fields on the north side of Pensacola have debris piles taller than 5-story buildings, and smoke curls out of them from internal fires. My mother on the northern fringe of Pensacola has a Blue Roof (tarps) and the insurance company has issued her two checks she can't cash because they're payable to both her and a mortgage company (she has never had a mortgage on that house or land). My mom spent weeks maneuvering a red wagon through debris-filled streets to meet up with a friend on the other side of the worst blockages, drive in the friend's car to a store, and buy milk etc for the multiple families staying in the house she and her 90-year-old husband were staying in. (My brother and his teenager had come from two states over to cut a bit of a path, and had lugged in pickup-truckloads of nonperishable food plus water to last the house until clean water and electricity were restored.) Then she had to get the groceries back through the debris via that kiddy wagon. With todders--peoples' great-grandchildren--staying in the house, a milk run had to be made almost daily. Luckily, they had running water after only a couple of weeks, and electricity after 6 weeks. I tell her she ought to raise political hell, especially about the insurance problems, but she's a very private person. The house we used to live in on Pensacola Beach can't be located without a GPS. The brick house we lived in outside Gulf Breeze is a foundation with pipes sticking out of it, and the block house we lived in inside Gulf Breeze is wholly roofless. But Bush finds better photo ops on the other side of the world.
And.... then there's the $50 Mill for the coronation. Disgusting. Obscene. Embarassing. We are so screwed when the majority of the "free press" isn't covering the story.
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