Hurricane Ian came ashore in Southwest Florida yesterday afternoon with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, which is very scary indeed, and moved northeast toward Orlando and the Atlantic Ocean, leaving flooding and wind damage in its wake. That is close to a Category 5 storm, and almost as strong as Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed much of South Miami 30 years ago. Tuesday night, what with all the storm coverage on the news, I checked out the webcam at Sloppy Joe's as Hurricane Ian was passing to the west of Key West. By midnight Sloppy Joe's, Hemingways favorite bar back in the 1930s, had closed up and rain was pouring down, as seen in the photograph above.
Earlier, however, there were people out and about, despite the outer bands bringing wind and rain from Hurricane Ian. I suspect that if Sloppy Joe's and the other bars in Key West hadn't closed early, people would have been wandering around until closing time. That's the kind of town it is - nothing is allowed to get in the way of a good time down there. Of course, in other parts of Florida, people actually have hurricane parties during those storms, which is definitely tempting fate. John D. McDonald's novel Condominium should be required reading for anyone moving into the state. And anytime you want to check out the action at Sloppy Joe's, go to https://liveduvalstreet.com/.
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