Every morning and every evening for the last few months, I’ve patrolled my yard for standing water. I know it’s silly, but maybe this is a case where every little bit helps. I dump out a couple trays under my herb plants a couple times a day, but it’s a losing battle. It’s the rainy season, which means we get a shower almost every afternoon somewhere in Miami-Dade and/or Broward Counties. If it doesn’t rain in the afternoon, then we get it during the night or early morning. ….It’s the rainy season. And, it’s not going to get any drier until November at the earliest and I don’t want a drought any more than i want a load of Zika in my town. So, then I looked to see if there are any hurricanes headed my way and found out:
The satellite picture below that shows a blue/green dot on the Southern tip of Florida headed East. I expect we’ll get soaked again in a few hours. Good for breeding mosquitoes — not good for stopping Zika.
I live about 30 minutes North of the Wynwood area but I’ve been visiting that area of Miami twice a week for the last month for work. I’m concerned, but not freaking out. I did toss some extra Off into the cart on my last trip to Costco, but other than making sure I don’t have any standing water around my house, that’s all I can do.
Our current rain situation is partly related to the weather affecting Louisiana. The rain there is due to a low pressure trough stuck between high pressure zones immediately North and South of the flooding. We currently have a high pressure zone over Central Florida driving potential hurricanes as well as rain clouds in general South starting at the Southern tip of Florida. This weather pattern is expected to stick around for a couple more weeks. A steady stream of scattered clouds float across Southern Florida every day bringing rain which makes it tough to combat mosquitoes (and Zika). That and the fact that Rick Scott pretty much flat lined the budgeting for mosquito control over the last few years made the perfect recipe for Zika to spread. I suppose I should be heartened that the spread took a month, but….
Sadly, a new Zika zone was announced today in Miami Beach from 8th Street to 28th Street (which is the Southern border of our famed South Beach area. The cynic in me is wondering if that 28th Street boundary was selected with tourism in mind. I don’t see how that would work since not everybody takes 195 to get to Miami Beach.
This is only a 1.5 mile zone as the crow flies. My plot line is there to give you an idea of how big the area is. It goes from 8th Street West to Alton Road; then North to Dade Blvd. then jags over to A1A for an a 2.8 mile route line. This area is solid housing, businesses and hotels. There’s some parks, but not much. As you can see with the Google Earth map of the same area, the two green areas are the Miami Beach Golf Club and the Flamingo Park Pool and baseball diamonds. There are about 90,000 residents and just under 20,000 businesses in the new Zika zone that caters to the approximate 3.5 million (out of the estimated 10 million Miami tourists) who visit Miami-Dade every year.
If people stay away from Miami because of Zika; it will clobber South Florida’s economy in a big way.
Most of my business acquaintances are concerned, but there’s not much we can do in any practical way. We need mosquito control, but no one wants the insecticide near their homes. There is a genetically modified mosquito experiment that has been run in the Cayman Islands and is due to happen in Key West later this year, but even if it works and reduces the mosquito population by 90%, many people are leary of unintended consequences and don’t want genetically modified mosquitoes in their neighborhoods. Maybe it’s just me, but having a bunch of sterile male mosquitos in the area seems attractive to me. Unfortunately, even if the experiment is a terrific success with no down side, we won’t see the use of it for 3-5 years.
The mosquito that carries the Zika virus is a prolific, stubborn sucker. The female drops about 200 eggs 5 times in her short lifespan of 10-21 days. (Talk about your 3 steps forward, 5 steps back scenario.) The Aedes aegypti also carries Yellow Fever and Dengue Fever. I find it appalling that both Florida and U.S. lawmakers allowed this public health concern to continue like it is unabated. (I’m looking at Zika as another reason for me to focus on November’s election — mostly for the down ticket races. We need more and better Democrats in the Florida State House.)
It’s easy to dump out an overfill tray for a potted plant, but what can you do about the dip between where your driveway ends and the street begins that holds a couple gallons of water? You can’t as a practical matter go over your lawn flipping over every leaf that cupped a bit of water or shake the water out of the trees and shrubs or become the crank on your block demanding your neighbors diligently remove standing water from their lawns, patios and balconies. This is a case where I as a liberal want a well functioning government and I don’t have one. This sucks.