After spending the last three days cooped up in our downtown Miami apartment without air conditioning thanks to Hurricane Irma, we are impatient to get outside this morning. Sixteen flights of stairs helped get the kinks out – we didn’t want to wait for the elevators to be turned back on – and the weather is lovely!
I am, however, surprised by the amount of damage the hurricane caused. Having been through Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Wilma, I realize it could have been much much worse; but it still hurts to see my beloved Central Business District in shambles.
The national story, of course, are the construction cranes that collapsed. One of those tower cranes is located directly across the street from my building. We heard the crash during the hurricane, but did not realize the extent of the damage – or how fortunate we are – until this morning. For my full blog post on this: Breezy With a Chance of Cranes
We see pieces of the downtown Miami street lights all along NE 3 Street between Biscayne Blvd and NE 2 Avenue, yet can not find any damaged street lights on this block. Another small demonstration of the power of a hurricane’s winds.
Avenue 3, between Flagler Street and NE 2 Street seems to have been hit the hardest in the historic section of downtown Miami. Some of the buildings on the west side on the avenue have lost parts of their roof, facades, and air conditioning systems.
And we finally found the “massive” downtown flooding all of the news broadcasts were talking about!
The Bayfront Park MetroMover station looks like it took the brunt of the tropical storm force winds & gusts up to 99 MPH coming straight off of Biscayne Bay. The electric system is also damaged, and is making awful noises as we walk past.
The lower level parking garage at the Intercontinental Hotel is flooded.
And we have seen more than one water-logged pissed-off pigeon during our survey of the downtown Miami historic Central Business District. This little guy was sitting so still we feared he had been injured during Hurricane Irma, but he is fine. He is just enjoying the “day after” sunshine, trying to dry out.
