Life on Florida’s West Coast

What Will You Risk to Live There?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting Suncoast Scribe!

Here is Florida, we recently had a rash of wildfires that reached all of the way to Georgia that threatened a lot of homes and destroyed a lot of our forests and fields. That was absolutely nothing like the fires out in California right now, though. There are reportedly half a million people who have evacuated their homes. I cannot even imagine the widespread concern and panic. A full 1300 homes have been absolutely destroyed, burned the ground.

Fires out on the southern California coast happen each and every year. People know that they are making their homes in risky locations. People rebuild. There is always the looming risk that one year, the fire will visit your home. I imagine that there most be an amazing amount of appeal for living in the area if people keep coming back, keep building. Take the risk.

It is no different than when people build and rebuild on flood plains or on our hurricane coasts. You become so attached to the area or to your hometown or to just owning a home on the Gulf or the Ocean that you push to the back of your mind the idea that your home could be gone in a wink.

I see the appeal, but my own sense of risk taking diminishes a little more every year. I see more and more value in living when the possibility of a natural disaster coming near me is as low as possible.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

1 Comment »

Comment by Joana
2007-10-25 00:49:15

I’ve wondered that same thing myself. Certainly if you’ve grown up there it would be hard to live. But if you were looking for a place to settle down and live at, why would you choose to build your home in a spot that is well known for disaster, knowing full well that perhaps not even a year later you could be kissing it good bye?

It doesn’t make any sense to me. I think of my pets, all the possessions I hold of sentimental value, my anime collection, my books, and my mind just crumbles trying to picture losing it all.

 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Subscribe to comments via email
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> in your comment.