James, the island is bouncing back slowly. Most of the businesses survived, but lots of the resorts took heavy damage. Many of the Gulf front hotels and resorts lost their roofs and were destroyed by water damage all the way down to the first floor. Once the water comes in, it's all over. Within a couple days everything is covered in mold and mildew. No one was allowed back on the island for five days following Charley, and by then it was too late. These places will be gutted to the concrete walls, cleaned and sealed, and rebuilt from scratch. It will be the first of the new year (and well beyond) before many of these places will be back up to speed.
So right now we've got lots of open businesses, and no tourists. It's like a ghost town here right now.
As far as the vegetation goes, most of the native trees fared OK. There are still plenty of palms and other trees here, though they have been thinned. It's the Australian pines that took the big hit from the storm. I read that 75% have been wiped out. These are the tall trees that provided the shady canopy down Periwinkle Way. It's not shady anymore. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif These are not a native species, and have always been a subject of contoversy here. They drop lots of needles which smother anything trying to grow under them, which creates a monoculture. They also have a very shallow root system which makes them very susceptible to falling over in a storm (which they did en masse). Power was out for two weeks+ after Charley, and the biggest reason why was because of all the pines that had taken out the lines. People here get a little crazy about native trees, etc. and many are glad to see the pines gone. All I know is that liked the way they looked and also the shade that they used to provide. The only benefit from the massive tree loss is that my cell phone service has been dramatically improved. I literally gained two full bars of signal strength after the hurricane. I'd gladly give it back in exchange for the trees though.
Thankfully Sanibel will always be a relatively unspoiled place to visit due to land conservation and a Vision plan to try and keep it as natural as possible. Unfortunatley, it is rapidly becoming an exclusive home for the very wealthy. Regular folks are being pushed out by rapidly increasing home prices. Where year round residents once lived in modest houses, multi-million dollar "show homes" now sit mostly vacant by absentee part time "snowbird" residents. It's a sad state of affairs, but I guess it's inevitable. I'm just trying to enjoy living here for as long as I can hold out, which probably won't be much longer.
Sorry for the hijack, we now return you to the original thread, already in progress. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Peter
