whoa i just got power back like 10 mins ago........

that was a scary day yesterday....last night they looted some stores on miracle mile which is close to where i live,so i'm glad that we got power back today. anyways it seems like wilma destroyed alot than any other storm i've everr seen(except andrew). BRICKELL avenue was destroyed and every street is unrecognizable.....seems like school's been cancelled for the rest of the week.

i hope all of our forummers are ok..

It was scary. Luckly my generator kept the house running. I just got a look at 1221 & the Interterra Building, two Miami landmarks, which have been severly damaged. And ESP also took a severe blow. But in several months everything will be back to normal.

Miami will need to reassess the way it does glass construction, I should think. This storm was not nearly as ferocious as Andrew was.

If 111 mph gusts can 'destroy' Brickell, what would a Cat 4/5 storm do ?

does anyone know if bank of america was on last night...i don't think it was.....which would be the first time in like 10 years it doesn't turn on

^ Destroy the city.

Seriously, Miami is an accident waiting to happen like New Orleans. More than likely a category 5 hurricane will hit one day and more than likely more than a few skyscrapers will come crashing down.

I'm not saying this to bash Miami in anyway, it's simply the truth. The city is gonna need to upgrade all skyscrapers to withstand wind above 200 mph +.

In 2005, we've seen thus far 3 of the 5 most powerful hurricanes ever recorded. Global warming or not, something is changing and these category 5 hurricanes are becoming more common.

but i mean most skyscrapers are made with 200 mph missle resistant glass(most)

so i'm totally surprised that both greenburg taurig and espirtio santo were bombarded and destroyed like that but no many buildings in cbd were damaged,and the brickell towers are younger than the downtown towers

Got power this morning around 10. Internet service finally kicked in. All is well in the beach. What a storm, never seen anything like it before. My building survived the storm intact, except for the Air Conditioning unit, the storm moved it and that thing is huge. Don't have to work for the week, so I will be hanging out at the beach. The damage is impressive to say the least, i have some video anyone know where I can download to. All is well here in Miami Beach we made it :-)

breaking news:::

the wachovia tower in baypointe about five blocks away from blue is on fire,somethings about a power surge which caused a spark....

Mr Man that is the most ridiculous statement...lol. Miami is not New Orleans...we will never be flooded like New Orleans since we are above sea level and in case you didn't know Andrew in 1992 was a CAT 5 which leveled the southern half of Miami.....none of the highrises collapsed....windows break in storms like these unless they are protected and you can't shutter skyscrapers like you can with a home....people rebuild..Do you propose abandoning LA & San Francisco because of earthquakes as well??

Good point, Bob.

Mr Man that is the most ridiculous statement...lol. Miami is not New Orleans...we will never be flooded like New Orleans since we are above sea level and in case you didn't know Andrew in 1992 was a CAT 5 which leveled the southern half of Miami.....none of the highrises collapsed....windows break in storms like these unless they are protected and you can't shutter skyscrapers like you can with a home....people rebuild..Do you propose abandoning LA & San Francisco because of earthquakes as well??

Yeah, that's true...

Earthquake isn't occured again and again as what like hurricane did.

There's 3 last majority earthquake in LA
1. 1933 Long Beach Earthquake
2. 1971 San Fernando Earthquake
3. 1994 Northridge Earthquake

It's pretty long to be pass away from earthquake.

Bob, I don't think they're wanting to let us up. They know we're down and they don't want to let us up.

Guess you have to live with it, on a skyscraper forum, when you live in an area that has hundreds and hundreds of highrises planned and u/c.

The issue here is that Dade received Category 1 sustained winds with gusts around 100-115 mph and there were very serious structual failures. Wilma was a Cat 3 in the Everglades but weakened over land but the Cat 2 sustained winds were mainly in Broward.

Bottom Line:

The windows in Brickell were not supposed to break at Cat 1 sustained winds. They were designed to withstand winds much higher than that, so either the building codes have to be severely tightened because what we thought about the wind intensity relationship was incorrect or there is still a lot of shoddy code enforcement and crappy buildings are getting built.

Espirito Santo is only 2 years old. There is simply no excuse for it to look like a building bombed out in Beirut when Dade got Cat 1 sustained winds.

If Cat 1 winds did this, imagine if we got another Cat 5 Hurricane Andrew type storm. Quite Frankly, the structure may have collapsed if it was built this poorly.

wilams one scary motha**SHUT YO MOUTH**

Did the windows pop out, or did they break due to projectiles ? If wind, then we've got problems. But I don't think 'hurricane glass' insures against breakage from 100 mph projectiles.

To think that the Interterra building was built 23 years ago and the area has been hit several times by storms like this. And now the windows pop? The building was totally remodeled 10 years ago, and was strenghthen to withstand a storm like this. I guess SOM doesn't think about hurricanes with there designs.

From every indication, it was the wind that popped them out and once one window went the pressure and wind was too much and it was like dominos, floor by floor windows kept popping as the wind circulated throughout the building. It was a chain reaction.

There really aren't that many projectiles a few hundred feet in the air. Maybe stuff falling out of the high-rises as the windows broke. But I think wind was the main problem here.

Hmmm...

It's also possible there was a wind tunnel effect at work where the wind was enhanced by the condo and office building canyons.

I think this is why South Shore Hospital on South Beach was totally gutted. If you look at google earth, the bentley bay condos are right in front of it. There is an opening between the two towers. The wind coming from the west must have gone through the two buildings and magnified the winds ripping the hospital to shreads.

Anyone on Miami Beach know if window popping was widespread? How did the Condo Canyon's in 50's on Collins do?

In North Bay Village, one condo had 100 units out of 500 absolutely gutted.

Well, pray that it's not wind tunnel effect, lest it become a rallying cry against further highrise construction in Florida.

Still no power at the house (could be a week or two if the FPL substation blew). I just hope i get my power back before the weather heats back up. Its not so bad having no AC when its cool outside but once it gets back over 80 to 85 degrees, I'm going to be hurtin. I read that every single substation in Broward was destroyed, one reason is that the only protection they are given is a chain-link fence. Another indication that FPL is the most unprepaired business for storms in all of South Florida. I wonder if the fact that they are a monopoly with no incentive to improve has anything to do with that?

Sorry to hear about your travails, dave. Glad you're okay though.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12996051.htm

Glass failure in high-rises shocks experts

High-rise windows in Miami-Dade and Fort Lauderdale did not live up to safety expectations, leaving experts wondering what went wrong.

BY CURTIS MORGAN AND MATTHEW HAGGMAN

cmorgan@herald.com


Wilma was the first real test in decades of how the glittering, fast-growing skylines of Miami and Fort Lauderdale would hold up in a hurricane. The result stunned and troubled emergency managers and building experts.

Hundreds of windows blew out in dozens of high-rises, causing extensive and expensive damage to such centers of public life as the Broward County Courthouse and heralded new Miami landmarks such as the Espirito Santo Plaza and Four Seasons Tower.

On Tuesday, panes were still falling from the posh Miami hotels, recently completed under the strictest building and wind codes. They posed such a public safety danger that Miami police closed five blocks of Brickell Avenue to traffic.

''This looks like Berlin after the war,'' said Miami Police Chief John Timoney, as he surveyed more than a half-dozen ravaged buildings on Brickell. ``I don't know what to make of it. These buildings are supposed to resist winds up to 150 miles per hour.''

The destruction perplexed structural engineers and contractors as well, who were groping for causes that may not be pinpointed until inspectors and engineers examine each structure.

Some pointed to one obvious suspect -- an assault of wind-driven debris, perhaps gravel from surrounding high-rise roofs or trash from surrounding construction sites -- but there were many possibilities.

In older buildings, it could be as simple as glass never designed to withstand hurricane winds. In newer ones, it might be anything from poor construction techniques to faulty materials to specific designs of some buildings to the dynamic of wind moving among buildings and possibly ''tunneling,'' or multiplying, its force.

`DUMBFOUNDED'

No less of a construction authority than Herb Saffir, a Coral Gables structural engineer who co-developed the Saffir-Simpson scale used to rate hurricane intensity, pronounced himself ''dumbfounded'' by the widespread window losses -- particularly to newer downtown Miami buildings such as the JW Marriott hotel, constructed after Miami-Dade beefed up its building codes following Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Wilma, Saffir pointed out, wasn't even a major hurricane when it hit the Southeast coast, but a Category 2 or even 1. The highest reported gusts in downtown Fort Lauderdale barely topped 100 mph. Downtown Miami got off even lighter.

''Even if it had been the pre-Andrew code, I think those windows should have stayed in place,'' he said.

Most of the damage in Miami-Dade and Broward was the familiar kind -- damaged house and condo roof or tiles, downed trees, felled fences -- but few expected so many high-rise blowouts.

NOT ISOLATED CASES

In Miami, in addition to the newer JW Marriott, Four Seasons and Espirito Santo Plaza, there were dozens of other buildings that lost windows. The most notable damage: The southern side of the Colonial Bank building at 1200 Brickell was punched out, as were windows on the southern side of the Greenberg Traurig building at 1221 Brickell across the street.

In North Bay Village, Wilma blew through dozens of units at the Grand View Palace apartments, and the unoccupied South Shore Hospital in Miami Beach lost more than 100 panes.

While some of the newest apartments and condos seemed to survive intact, many of the tallest buildings in downtown Fort Lauderdale had damage.

Among the worst-hit were the Broward Financial Center, at U.S. 1 and Broward Boulevard, and the school district headquarters on Southeast Third Avenue at Southeast Sixth Street. Nearly all of the windows were blown out on the west faces of both buildings.

The Broward County Courthouse also suffered severe damage, as did one of the New River Village apartment buildings on Sixth Street west of U.S. 1. The Bank of America building, at Broward Boulevard and Northeast Third Avenue, had a large hole halfway up the south face.

The way many high-rises are built, with windows affixed to a strong building skeleton in what archtitects call ''a curtain wall,'' experts say window blowouts don't typically threaten the stability of building. But window failures can gut offices or living spaces and put them out of commission for months.
Before Andrew, Saffir said, a building's ''cladding,'' or outer shell, fell into a poorly regulated gray area. After Andrew, Miami-Dade and Broward adopted a tougher building code, adopted statewide for coastal areas in 2001.

Under that code, high-rises' windows are supposed to withstand not only the higher pressure of more powerful upper-level winds but some debris as well.

Like home windows, they also are supposed to withstand impact tests, including the two-by-four fired from a cannon. But windows above 60 feet are supposed to be designed to withstand small debris flying at Category 3 levels, or around 120 mph.

Still, because of the wide amount of damage to old and new buildings, several experts say some sort of debris remains the most plausible explanation.

Scott Schiff, a professor of civil engineering at Clemson University, said his chief suspect would be gravel used on some -- particularly older -- high-rise roofing systems. The rock, applied atop tar and paper to protect the waterproofing, can be easily blown off a roof into that building or surrounding ones.

GRAVEL SENT ALOFT?

Roof gravel did extensive damage in downtown Houston during Hurricane Alicia in 1983, he said, and blew out windows in Cutler Ridge and at the Homestead Air Force Base during Andrew as well.

On the base, he said, ''it was like someone went around for 36 hours with a shotgun and shot every single building,'' he said.

Once a window breaks, the flying shards can become missiles themselves, he said, and also expose other windows to internal pressure blowouts as hurricane winds howl inside.

Tom Murphy, Jr., president of Coastal Construction in Miami, who was out of town and had not seen the damaged buildings, wondered if debris from the many condos under construction got caught up in the wind and damaged the buildings.

''Debris is the likely culprit, but I would not know without seeing it,'' he said.

But Murphy added that, despite wind tests and careful design, how high-rise buildings respond to hurricane-force winds remains -- as a practical matter -- uncertain.

''There is a big difference between wind that is 30 feet off the ground and wind that is 130 feet off the ground.'' said Murphy, whose company has a host of high-rise towers under construction.

Tim Reinhold, vice president of engineering for the insurance-industrysupported Institute for Business and Home Safety in Tampa, suspected debris was largely to blame as well. But he said it was critical for the state to determine what failed and why -- particularly with the newer structures because South Florida's condo boom is putting more people in similar high-rises in a hurricane zone.

''There is going to be a need to go through and evaluate what were the forces and failures, the designs of the buildings, the codes,'' he said. ``If they were built right and still failed, then we've got some real trouble. We might need to seriously reevaluate our standards.''

Herald staff writers Andres Viglucci, Amy Sherman and Sara Olkon contributed to this report.

Espirito Santo is only 2 years old. There is simply no excuse for it to look like a building bombed out in Beirut when Dade got Cat 1 sustained winds.
I haven't to Beirut lately, but I stood in Fortune's parking lot (1300 Brickell) at about noon on Monday. Not many people with me in that wind...a few fish on the ground and glass everywhere. The western facade of Espirito was fine, and no more than dozen windows seemed to be blown out on the south side. Colonial Bank and Greenberg Taurig were disasters, but you've all seen those pictures by now.
I'm no weatherman, but could it be that a tornando touched down there? This little area seemed hit so much harder than other parts of Brickell or anywhere else for that matter.

Oh, sidebar. As I evaluted the damage to our office buildings, I commented to another person, "I'll bet you that the Herald runs an article criticizing the construction of these buildings and questioning whether new condos are going to be safe".
You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows!!!

^ that could be true Roark regarding a tornado in that area....remember back in May 1997 when a tornado passed over downtown just north of the CBD and blew out many windows in the area and it was only a F1.

Percentages of each County with power restored (as of 1PM):
Miami-Dade: 16.3%
Palm Beach: 10.6%
Broward: 2.9%

Broward is going to take a long long time with all those substations destroyed.

I'm glad to hear our Miami forumers are doing okay. I'm grateful that I have been out of town during this hurricane season. It will be interesting to see how authorities and developers react to the widespread destruction on South Florida's skyscrapers. I've always been wary about the glass monsters in Brickell, but I never thought Category 1 sustained winds would be able to do that.

Perhaps it is similar to the towers in LA. When the Library Tower (or whatever its called now) was built in LA, it was stated that it could sustain an 8.3 earthquake based on tests and calculations. But after it was built, they reevaluated it and discovered it wouldn't even be able to sustain half of that. Hopefully this isn't the case with South Florida, although it looks like it might be.

Also, I know South Floridians love to say that they survived a Category 5 in Andrew, but don't all records indicate that Andrew was a 4 when it made landfall?

Anyhow, glad to see everyone's alright. And I'll pray for the best for our lovely city.

Percentages of other hard hit counties that have been restored (a hint into how widespread the power recovery effort is):

Collier: 49.5%
Lee: 53.2%
Martin: 39%
St.Lucie: 54.9%
Indian River: 40.6%
Hendry: 55.3%
Okeechobee: 30.8%

No doubt, there was major destruction in a few skyscrapers, and of course all of those pictures will be on TV and in the papers, but let's keep some perspective.
There were only a few buildings in the area with significant damage. Four Seasons, the tallest, had about 50 windows blown out. Just guessing, that is probably 10% of their windows. Espirto Santo has less. 1221 Brickell, okay, that was massive, probably 50% of their windows gone.
Lest we think that it was TOTAL destruction, just from looking around the area, Vue at Brickell 0%, Jade Residences 0%, One Miami 0%, Brickell on the River 0%, One Broadway 0%, Wachovia maybe 1% or less.
You get the point.
Most of these buildings will be open for business by Friday.

The western facade of Espirito was fine, and no more than dozen windows seemed to be blown out on the south side.

Ummm...no. Entire freaking FLOORS of Espirito were blown out.

See for yourself.

http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/uploads/post-547-1130278214.jpg

My family and I are a curse. Last year, we spent a weekend in Sebastian. The next week Frances roared through. Last week, we spent a weekend in Pompano Beach. Ah, you guessed it.

Breacking news from kendall: I have light!!! I have powerrrr!!! finally thank God!!!! Thanku fpl!!!!

The south side of ESP took the brunt of the winds, which shows the most damage. The West, East and North sides are in pretty good shape.

Shitt!!! The light went back out, I started to panic... but now it's back on...wheew...

Still no power at the house (could be a week or two if the FPL substation blew). I just hope i get my power back before the weather heats back up. Its not so bad having no AC when its cool outside but once it gets back over 80 to 85 degrees, I'm going to be hurtin. I read that every single substation in Broward was destroyed, one reason is that the only protection they are given is a chain-link fence. Another indication that FPL is the most unprepaired business for storms in all of South Florida. I wonder if the fact that they are a monopoly with no incentive to improve has anything to do with that?

Sorry to hear that dave, but hang in there! Don't forget they said that it's going to take a little while (like 2 days) before some problems are sorted out in broward, and from there on power shall be coming back in no time... Hang in there!!!

Sorry to hear that dave, but hang in there! Don't forget they said that it's going to take a little while (like 2 days) before some problems are sorted out in broward, and from there on power shall be coming back in no time... Hang in there!!!

I got mine tonight too.

Thank god for generators and Sprint PCS internet. Both have helped me to maintain my sanity over the past few days :D

On Monday, I had DSL local loop, but SnappyDSL was out of commission. Now I can ping my modem's gateway router from Sprint, but my @$#(*($& DSL local loop is gone. Sigh. If it weren't for FAP, I'd probably go with DirecWay or WildBlue... I know one guy who has DirecWay in Cancun and stayed online throughout the entire hurricane (well, ok, he briefly lost connectivity during a few of the really REALLY bad hits, but once the dish stopped wobbling, it sync'ed right back up again).

Ummm...no. Entire freaking FLOORS of Espirito were blown out. See for yourself. http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/uploads/post-547-1130278214.jpgwell, as written in my post, I was there on Monday at noon, and looked at Esprito Santo "with my own eyes", amazingly, I didnt' see any "FLOORS of Espirito blown out" the building was the exact same height, and had the exact same number of floors as when I looked at it Friday...
There are a lot of holes in the windows on the South facade.
In case you hadn't really walked around the building or have no imagination, there are four sides to the building. Only one sustained damage, the south side.
In case you missed my point, it was that people shouldn't get prone to hyperbole and exaggeration. Even though you probably believe in your brain that "entire floors where blown up", that isn't true.
If someone from Orlando, or somewhere else reads your post, they might believe that Espirito Santo was poorly constructed. That isn't true. Only one side of 4 (25%) was damaged and out of the 200 or so windows, only 90 were broken (45%of that side, times 25% of the building or 2.25% of the windows were broken)...please, let's leave the exaggeratioin to WSVN and the Herald.
And from my observation, the EsSanto buildings damage was mostly broken windows that looked like projectiles broke them, not by entire windows popping out of their frames.

From all the meteorological evidence, Brickell got Cat 1 winds. So something happened with that building that shouldn't have. Hurricane Windows in Dade County are rated for 146mph winds or Cat 4. High-Rise windows have even more stringent requirements. The fact that ANY windows in Four Seasons and Santo were blown out is very serious because it was only a Cat 1 in Brickell and they should have easily been able to withstand them.

This was severe damage. I count 12 floors on the south side gutted with entire rows of windows demolished. If this was a stronger storm, this building with all those windows exposed would have been gutted not just on the south side but all sides and may have even collapsed if this is an indication of structural defects in the construction or design of the tower.

But let me assure you, this incident will be investigated vigorously by the insurance industry and miami-dade and they will find problems with the high-rise building codes....and it will have serious repercussions. Bryan Norcross on CBS4 has been making a big stink about it on air for the last two days and his investigative reports were one of the big reasons the code got strengthened after Andrew exposed all the lousy construction in the 70's and 80's.

This incident may require a complete revamp of the way high-rise construction is done in South Florida, from design, to construction, to materials, to tower placement and wind tunneling effects. If you thought the FAA was a detriment to high-rises being built in Miami....just wait till we get hurricane wind tunneling setback, height, and zoning requirements.

This was severe damage. I count 12 floors on the south side gutted with entire rows of windows demolished.True, there are a lot of windows that look like they were broken by debris on the south side, but I really think that people are exagerating...especially people in the media. We should be careful to transmit accurate information so that people don't get the wrong ideas.
By the way, those 12 floors on the south side that you've counted as "gutted"... are they the same 12 floors that are "gutted" in this picture that I took in Feburary?
http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/spiritosanto.jpg

Ahh, I thought that wall was solid glass all the way around. So those are balconies or a design element of the building? If balconies, could you tell if windows and sliding glass doors behind it broke? You're right it doesn't look as bad as I originally thought comparing it to that picture, but still if this building was built to code, it shouldn't have a scratch in Cat 1 winds....even with debris hitting it, windows may shatter with debris but the hurricane glass is supposed to keep the window structurally sound.

That's going to be the big issue with this. During Katrina, there was other high-rise damage with water seeping in under sliding glass doors and windows because of the wind and pressure. Wasn't supposed to happen then either.

Just rode the ole bike down to the office (gotta save that precious fuel) and snapped a couple of pics.
Here is Fortune Internationals office in the foreground unscathed...Greenberg Taurig back left severely
damaged (mostly on the south/east side) Jade inbetween unscathed, and the Espirito Santo western
facade apparently unscathed.
http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/wilma_fir_gt_espsan.jpg
Just speculating...but as you can see from this photo of Espirito, the damage appears to be from projectiles breaking the southern
facade. I didn't see any windows "blown out" in the sense that there was too much pressure or faulty frames/construction.
It's also significant to mention that the damage occurred mostly above the 15th floor which is the first floor above the Santander
building next door. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the Santander has a pebble roofing material although I didn't see all that much
on the ground. We all know that these buildings have impact resistant glass on the lower floors, but maybe we should think about
the materials that are put on short roofs.
http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/wilma_espritosanto.jpg
Now with this one...it's anyone's guess! This is the Southern facade of the Colonial Bank building. 13th and Brickell, the only thing
accross from this facade is a big parking lot with some palm trees. It's an older building and these windows look to be just blown out.
http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/Wilma_ColonialBank.jpg

Not as bad as I thought. I'm becoming a roof pebble (and old codes) theorist.

guess who's coming guys....its our savior


the shit eating president,is coming to make it seem like he's doing something.
they'll probably make some script,where he saves some little boy by giving him a water bottle. comemierda

guess who's coming guys....its our saviorOf course. If he didn't come he'd be hated by some people too. Poor guy. It's almost like dealing with girlfriend, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

MadHatter you crack me up. I have been off all week long, schools are closed. You think they will reopen schools by Monday. I work up near the Miami Dade- Broward County line. Don't know how much damage the school received. Anyone from that area, how are things near Countyline Rd. Glad to see everyone coming back to the forum.

I love the way Governor Jeb slapped down the terminaly angry yesterday, asking how hard it is to heed the call to stock up on the basics beforehand.

estimated restoration times from www.fpl.com some aren't accurate
Treasure Coast
Indian River - Nov.8
Okeechobee - Nov. 8
St. Lucie - Nov. 15
Martin - Nov. 15

For Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties
Incomplete assessment; restoration on or before specified date:

Palm Beach
East of Florida Turnpike and North of PGA Blvd. - Nov. 15
Remainder of Palm Beach - Nov. 22
Broward - Nov. 22
Miami Dade - North of SW 88 St (Kendall Drive) - Nov. 22
Miami Dade - South of SW 88 St (Kendall Drive) - Nov. 8
Central Florida and West Coast
Glades - Nov. 8
Lee - Nov. 15
Hendry - Nov. 15
Collier - Nov. 15
Highlands –Nov. 8

Customers in and north of Brevard county, Manatee, Sarasota, DeSoto and Charlotte counties will have their electricity restored by late night tonight.

Overall, we expect to have restored service to the majority of our customers by Nov. 8, and to 95% of customers by Nov. 15.

I love the way Governor Jeb slapped down the terminaly angry yesterday, asking how hard it is to heed the call to stock up on the basics beforehand.

I agree with that,there was after all warning it was coming. Hell I dont suspect a tornado is going to hit me and I have more than three days of food in my house. Bush is looking for a photo opp as always though, pile some damaged glass in front of your house and maybe you will see him.

Due to a massive tornado in my town in 1998 (pictures http://www.zubin.com/tornado/photos.htm) all utilities are below ground now. We dont lose power in storms like most towns in the area do. We also became the first town to go all fiber optics due to that. The storm damaged or destroyed nearly every home in town, yet 7 years later there is no sign the city was ever hit (other than the fact so many houses..even the ones that look 100 years old seem so well preserved) and the population has grown about 5% since.

Percentages of each County with power restored (as of 1PM):
Miami-Dade: 16.3%
Palm Beach: 10.6%
Broward: 2.9%

Broward is going to take a long long time with all those substations destroyed.

Updated restoration stats as of 9PM:

Miami-Dade: 42.7%
Palm Beach: 23.8%
Broward: 20.7%

If Jeb is going to bitch about people not being prepared he needs to point a finger at FPL which is an unprepared as anyone. Private citizens take their vulnerable possesions out of harms way, not FPL with its above ground power lines and substations protected by nothing but barbed wire (I'm sure that keeps hurricanes out really well). People wouldn't be needing water or food or be missing work from being afraid of running out of gas if FPL and their government enforced monopoly had their shit together.

Can we all say, "FRIA" (Florida Robust Infrastructure Amendment) -- a constitutional referendum empowering FPL customers to force them to bury lines, costs be damned?

The very thought should be scaring the living $hit out of FPL right now. I suspect I could personally collect 10,000 signatures tomorrow afternoon just going from car to car for people waiting in line for gas, or standing in line to get into Winn Dixie, etc. asking them to sign... It (initially) worked for high-speed rail... it could do the same for power line burial (at least in dense urban areas where lines have no business being above ground in ANY self-respecting first-world country).

where could one read on this amendment? its not the first time ive heard of it
i know a few papers that would be interested in writing about it...

It would take $50-$80 billion to bury all lines, are you willing to have your electricity bill double or triple?

Also, burying lines doesn't solve all the problems, it can in fact make things more difficult if we got severe flooding. Damage above ground is easier to fix than damage below...

i seriously think that last statement is off basis

damage below is much less otherwise new devolpments would not bury utilities based on cost alone and the fact that it would be harder to fix then burying lines would not be an option...

If Jeb is going to bitch about people not being prepared he needs to point a finger at FPL which is an unprepared as anyone. Private citizens take their vulnerable possesions out of harms way, not FPL with its above ground power lines and substations protected by nothing but barbed wire (I'm sure that keeps hurricanes out really well). People wouldn't be needing water or food or be missing work from being afraid of running out of gas if FPL and their government enforced monopoly had their shit together.

Another great thing about Jeb's tirade against people not being prepared: He vetoed money from the budget this year that was to help cover the cost of gas stations buying generators in case of a hurricane...oops.

ahh the bush's keep on keeping on dont they. We have all our utilities below ground here due to a massive tornado years ago. Sure it costs a lot of money to do it, but how much does it cost to replace the entire system in a large storm (and if you look at the link to see the pictures that is what we had to do here). Miami has the potential to be hit by a hurricane on a yearly basis, the cost to utilities is very high and so it would pay for itself over time.

Another great thing about Jeb's tirade against people not being prepared: He vetoed money from the budget this year that was to help cover the cost of gas stations buying generators in case of a hurricane...oops.I listened to Jeb's speech and it wasn't a tirade. That is, unless you are a hater. If you are a hater, everything he ever says will be bad.
It was straightforward and full of common sense. Sadly, not everyone has common sense or the ability to understand that a good amount of personal responsibility will make your own life better. Just a fact...don't fight it!
I've yet to hear anyone that prepared complain or bitch about it is the government's fault that there are natural disasters.
It is typically unprepared people that point fingers, complain, and shift the blame for naturally occurring events on corporations or governments.
Sure, we can improve things, and we usually do, but it isn't necessary to demonize people, hate people, or resent corporations.
Take action!!! It's America, you have a choice, stop using FPL if believe that their product/service is so bad. you can always buy a generator or a windmill or a solar panel.

By the way, I'm glad our leader vetoed a bill to give handouts to business owners. There are business owner's that took responsibility and bought their own generators (with their own money, not yours or mine) and they were in business pumping gas like crazy through the Wilma mess. The guy that owns the station on Bird and 90th didn't need Jeb to make a smart business decision and the owner was handsomely rewarded. No goofy government program = no goofy abuse/administration fees.
Why don't more gas station owners buy generators? Not sure, maybe they are buying plasma tv's or vacations. Whatever the case, please don't blame the government for not spending my money.

Another great thing about Jeb's tirade against people not being prepared: He vetoed money from the budget this year that was to help cover the cost of gas stations buying generators in case of a hurricane...oops.

I think you know very well his was not a 'tirade'. Yours is a tirade. Jebs criticisms were spot-on. Now I'm not saying that your criticisms have no substance. I'm sure they do.

If the costs were spread over 25 years and allocated strictly according to marginal cost of burying everything from the substation to the individual customer's home(*), residents in dense areas wouldn't pay much, and residents in condos would individually pay practically nothing. Someone living in a single-family home in Coral Gables north of US-1 might pay an extra $3-5/month (not dense, but substations are nearby and shared with lots of high-density residents). Someone living in a condo in Brickell or South Beach would probably pay less than $1/month. Townhome residents in Fountainbleu or along Kendall Drive might pay $2-3/month.

FPL has carefully read every page of "How to Lie With Statistics". When FPL quotes undergrounding costs, they include the cost of burying lines to the most remote, expensive-to-reach trailer at the Everglades fringe of Homestead and spreading the cost evenly over everyone. Also driving up FPL's estimate costs are easement acquisitions. That's a bogus cost, because it assumes FPL would have to buy brand new easements to lay the cable and overlooks the fact that they ALREADY HAVE easements... the ones where the poles are now. Sure, it would make FPL's job easier to have a brand new easement... but if push came to shove, I think they COULD bury the new lines where the poles are now.

Initially, they could harden the substations by building concrete bunkers around them (like they do everywhere else in the world, even in relatively poor third world countries!) and bury the "last mile" distribution lines (the ones that always get knocked down by trees, flying debris, etc). That alone would cut average downtimes to less than a day, because restoring a relatively small number of transmission lines could be done quickly, and would bring everyone "downstream" back online immediately. Later, cities and urban counties could explore the cost of burying the higher-voltage transmission lines. But the big "bang for the buck" would come from burying the last mile transmission lines, because THOSE are the ones that ALWAYS go down anytime a tropical storm passes within a hundred miles.

While they're at it, I'd like to see them bury some dark fibre along with the power lines, for ultimate sale to a company whose only job would be to provide "last mile" data connectivity between end users and a hurricane-hardened NAP -- acting as a content-neutral common carrier leasing IP bandwidth on transparent terms to anyone with a checkbook (lowering the barrier to entry, so we could actually have "Mom & Pop" cable & phone companies competing with BellSouth and Comcast... giving them not just one competitor, but literally hundreds... all catering to little niche markets where Comcast can't even fantasize about competing, like "Bob's MTV Cable Company", offering nothing but MTV's channels $5/month to people who only care about those channels by receiving them with a dish in Bob's backyard, running them through the back-end hardware in a spare bedroom, and streaming up the fiber to the NAP, where they'd get individually distributed to Bob's subscribers. The nice thing about fiber is that it's expensive to lay and light, but has SO MUCH bandwidth that the marginal cost of providing it to one more customer is practically ZERO once it goes online. I'd run fiber to each neighborhood, then run gigabit ethernet the final few hundred feet to each end user. I'd even let BellSouth and Comcast both have fibers of their own, which they could either run all the way to the end users, or terminate somewhere short of them like they do now.

By the way, "FRIA" was an acronym I came up with, mainly because its acronym would kind of be a private Dade County joke emphasizing one of the main driving motivations behind it (the fact that Dade county is largely uninhabitable for most of the year without air conditioning).

---

(*) How I'd allocate costs:

Suppose we have a FPL substation on SW 8th Street near 62 ave (wink wink). That substation might directly serve 40,000 customers over an area that has 10 square miles. Let's suppose that 800 of those customers live within 1,000 feet of the substation, and the cost of burying that thousand feet of cable is $200,000. Now, let's suppose another 3,000 customers live within 2,000 feet of the substation. The cost of running that second thousand feet of cable is also $200,000. And another 9,000 customers live within 4,000 feet of the substation. The cost of burying the third and fourth thousand feet of cable might be $400,000. Now, let's pretend that the rest of the customers don't exist for the sake of example. So... that first 1,000 feet of cable directly benefits 12,800 customers (800 + 3,000 + 9,000). Those customers would each pay $15.62 of that cost. The second 1,000 feet of cable would directly benefit 12,000 customers (3,000 + 9000). Those customers would each pay an additional $16.67. The next 2,000 feet would directly benefit 9,000 customers and cost $400,000 to lay, so they'd each pay $44.44 of the cost.

Doing the final math... the people who live within a block of the substation would each pay a whopping, bank-breaking $15.62, plus whatever the cost was of running a cable from that shared line to their own house (approx. $1,000-2,000). The people who live within two blocks of the substation would pay $32.29 + the cost of running the cable to their own house. The people living a few more blocks away would pay $76.73 plus the cost of running the cable to their house.

As you can see, the people who live near the substation (or live in condos) make out like bandits, and the people who live at the fringe would pay a lot more... but in an urban area, even at a cost of a million dollars per mile, the bulk of the cost is really the cost of burying the wires from the customer's meter to the shared distribution line.

When reading FPL's "per-mile" estimates, remember... the construction of an outright, honest-to-god SUBWAY in mined-out TUNNELS costs less than a billion dollars per mile... and burying distribution lines is nowhere close to the complexity of building a subway, so when you see FPL quotes citing construction costs of $250,000,000/mile or more, it's time to stand up and firmly yell, "Bull$hit". Factor out the cost of connecting each individual customer to the shared line, and the actual per-customer cost of burying the shared line goes WAY down. Issue bonds and add the payments to monthly FPL bills for the next 25 years, and most FPL customers would enjoy robust, hurricane-proof power for less than the annual cost of buying GAS to run a 6-kilowatt generator for 48 hours.

I'm not a jeb hater (other than the occasional appeasement to the religous right which sickens me...i.e. Terry Schiavo) I just felt his how hard can be to prepare for a storm speech would have been far better had it been directed to FPL.

I listened to Jeb's speech and it wasn't a tirade. That is, unless you are a hater. If you are a hater, everything he ever says will be bad.It was straightforward and full of common sense. Sadly, not everyone has common sense or the ability to understand that a good amount of personal responsibility will make your own life better. Just a fact...don't fight it!I've yet to hear anyone that prepared complain or bitch about it is the government's fault that there are natural disasters.
It is typically unprepared people that point fingers, complain, and shift the blame for naturally occurring events on corporations or governments.
Sure, we can improve things, and we usually do, but it isn't necessary to demonize people, hate people, or resent corporations.
Take action!!! It's America, you have a choice, stop using FPL if believe that their product/service is so bad. you can always buy a generator or a windmill or a solar panel.By the way, I'm glad our leader vetoed a bill to give handouts to business owners. There are business owner's that took responsibility and bought their own generators (with their own money, not yours or mine) and they were in business pumping gas like crazy through the Wilma mess. The guy that owns the station on Bird and 90th didn't need Jeb to make a smart business decision and the owner was handsomely rewarded. No goofy government program = no goofy abuse/administration fees.
Why don't more gas station owners buy generators? Not sure, maybe they are buying plasma tv's or vacations. Whatever the case, please don't blame the government for not spending my money.

I think you know very well his was not a 'tirade'. Yours is a tirade. Jebs criticisms were spot-on. Now I'm not saying that your criticisms have no substance. I'm sure they do..


you republicans crack me up...anyways i do like the fact the the city of homestead no longer has fpl as there power suppliers,they started theyre own company called city of homestead power company even went to court with fpl over the matter but in the end they won and they were able to restore the power to all there citizens yesterday,maybe its time for the county to do the same,or try something different because this monoply fpl has is going to end up like a disaster in the future.

you republicans crack me up...anyways i do like the fact the the city of homestead no longer has fpl as there power suppliers,they started theyre own company called city of homestead power company even went to court with fpl over the matter but in the end they won and they were able to restore the power to all there citizens yesterday,maybe its time for the county to do the same,or try something different because this monoply fpl has is going to end up like a disaster in the future.

Of course that just tranfers control from one monopoly (FPL) to another (the local government), but at least the local govenment one would be accountable to some one (yes I know FPL is technically accountable to the state, but in reality hardly so). The better question would be, how can power be provided in a non-monopolistic system where things like capitalism and competition and inovation can actually come into play.

well in order to not have a monoply would be to give people more choices when it comes to electrical companies or just to have everyone fend for themselves and create there own power....

Newer subdivisions, like Doral (and probably Weston), have their lines underground. This explains why they were quick to have the power back before Kendall or Homestead (which is farther south of Doral with less wind).

you republicans crack me up...Why not focus on the ideas. Not whether someone is black, white, caucasian, tall, short, Republican, Libretarian, or Democrat???

I for one am very happy with the cost of electricity and level of service that I'm receiving from FPL. If I weren't I wouldn't whine and complain, I'd take action and do something about it.

I'm sure that cracks you up hatter! Okay, I'll stop whining about the whiners now. :cheers:

Newer subdivisions, like Doral (and probably Weston), have their lines underground. This explains why they were quick to have the power back before Kendall or Homestead (which is farther south of Doral with less wind).We were hit hard with lots of overturned cars and debris...much more damage than Kendall. Miami Beach at West Ave and 15th street is pretty old, but had power up in less than 24hours. Probably because there are 1,600 + customers in the Grand Flamingo and FPL wanted to sell their product to them. People in houses have plenty of choices about their electric power, but at the begining of tomorrow (note: another crusade to reduce usage of the phrase "at the end of the day") the obvious choice is FPL as a low cost provider.
Just for kicks...someone more familiar with the Homestead Co-op or what ever it is, start a new thread and price out how much it would cost to provide electric at FPL rates, Homestead rates, Solar power, windmill, gas generator, and dinosaur on a treadmill power. Hmmm....that would be something...I wonder what the smart civic/business decision would be?

Like just about every company in the United States, FPL is beholden to their customers.

Whiners...please don't feel defeated or victimized!!! Take action!! Start a petition, invent a solution to your problems (if the seriousness of the problem is perceived and not real, you will have a tougher go at it), and help out the community along the way!! Go get 'em boys! Take down the big nasty evil FPL!! What have they EVER done for you?! (of course, you should forget about the other 350 days out of the year if you want to keep hating them). What have they done for you LATELY!!

Jeb ? dat you ?

Solar panels are actually a very good investment in Miami. They pay for themselves in only a few years. The problem is that you have to have lots of batteries. Although I think that in Miami you can get your panel hooked right up to the grid and they subtract the amount of power provided by the panel from your bill. I don't remember how it works very well. My Alternative Energy teacher would be so mad at me.

Jeb ? dat you ? :tyty: :hahaha:

Anyhow I found a good website about Installing Photovoltaic Systems (http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/pvt/BuyInstallPV/index.htm). I know you guys love good investments. Setting up a photovoltaic system is an excellent investment and is good for the environment. Anyhow, you dont need batteries (unless you want backup power when hurricanes knock out the power). Also, I believe insulating your attic is a very good investment also. It reduces your energy consumption a lot and is relatively inexpensive.

Solar panels are actually a very good investment in Miami. They pay for themselves in only a few years. The problem is that you have to have lots of batteries. Although I think that in Miami you can get your panel hooked right up to the grid and they subtract the amount of power provided by the panel from your bill. I don't remember how it works very well. My Alternative Energy teacher would be so mad at me.

Up in the great north land we harness the wind, it blows strongly from west to east here because Wisconsin sucks and South Dakota blows. I just went through Lake Benton Minnesota this last weekend and discovered (I had not been there in about 15 years) that they had built a wind energy field there. The area around Lake Benton has about 350 wind turbines, its very impressive to see and a great way to reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy.

I agree with that,there was after all warning it was coming. Hell I dont suspect a tornado is going to hit me and I have more than three days of food in my house. Bush is looking for a photo opp as always though, pile some damaged glass in front of your house and maybe you will see him.


however if clinton or jimmy carter show up and take a picture with a hammer in their hand, then theyre great humanitarians...

^yup

^lool hatter and nimby,

we need pics comeon, wat about the 4 seasons, hows it doing, someone go take pics of the damage all over so we can see how bad it iz...

however if clinton or jimmy carter show up and take a picture with a hammer in their hand, then theyre great humanitarians...

Clinton is a politician, Carter IS a great humanitarian and has been for many many years.

Updated restoration stats as of 9PM:

Miami-Dade: 42.7%
Palm Beach: 23.8%
Broward: 20.7%

Another update:

Miami-Dade: 55.2%
Palm Beach: 34.6%
Broward: 29.9%

we need pics comeon, wat about the 4 seasons, hows it doing, someone go take pics of the damage all over so we can see how bad it iz...Welcome back MIA!!!! go back a page or two I posted a couple fresh pics...I was at 13th & Brickell on Monday noon...still blowing hard and not many folks outside...lots of sea water on Brickell though. As of thursday, Four Seasons had full power and internet access.
however if clinton or jimmy carter show up and take a picture with a hammer in their hand, then theyre great humanitarians...Good point Nimby...

I don't want a president physically building houses anyways. They have much more important things to be doing. I hate that presidential candidates nowadays are always trying to seem like everyday working class men in an effort to relate to the voter. I don't want someone like me to run the country. I want someone way smarter than me to run the country. Anyhow, Jimmy Carter is probably one of the greatest humanitarians of the last century. George Bush will just be remembered as one of the worst presidents in the last century. You just can't compare their humanitarian efforts.

I hate that presidential candidates nowadays are always trying to seem like everyday working class men in an effort to relate to the voter.Nowadays, huh? Sounds like you don't know much about Presidential history. Presdents have been doing this since there were US Presidents.George Bush will just be remembered as one of the worst presidents in the last century. You just can't compare their humanitarian efforts.Some will remember him that way. Sort of like how Archie Bunker always contended that Richard Nixon was the best President the US has ever had!!! Clearly you aren't thinking objectively to believe that and you for certain don't know much about Presdiential history to say GWB will be one of the worst in history. Unless he really blows it in the next 400 days. Carter left office in 1981, his legacy as President is a country that was run amok. If you were around then, you may remember gasoline rationing. I remember my family could not get gas on certain days (yes in America, and no, there wasn't a hurricane), double digit home mortgage rates, a botched hostage attempt in Iran, terrible relations with the Soviets, and an income tax bracket of 70%!!! Can you even imagine giving 70 cents of every dollar you earn to the government!?!??
Jimmy Carter has done a masterful job with his Public Relations campaign since he left office, and will likely go down as the most humanitarian Former President.
If you are to be objective, you could make a comparison of President George W. Bush and President Carter's humanitarian efforts during their terms. You would be very surprised (that is if you are thinking objectively).
For example, how about sending $15 Billion in aid to Africa?
Remember Live Aid (Feed the World song)? Under the leadership of Bob Gehldoff they raised 110 Million Pound Sterling for food aid to Africa. Not many would contend that was anything short of a well organized humanitarian effort. Certainly not me. 110M pounds is about $196 Million at todays exchange. For perspective, under the leadership of President George Bush, the United States gave 76 times more money than that!!!!
$15,000,000,000 is a lot to give to have anyone say that you aren't humanitarian.
Feel free to hate the President, and vote any way you like, but come on, give a little credit where it is due. Or in the absence of not saying something nice, just don't say anything at all!!

We were hit hard with lots of overturned cars and debris...much more damage than Kendall. Miami Beach at West Ave and 15th street is pretty old, but had power up in less than 24hours. Probably because there are 1,600 + customers in the Grand Flamingo and FPL wanted to sell their product to them. People in houses have plenty of choices about their electric power, but at the begining of tomorrow (note: another crusade to reduce usage of the phrase "at the end of the day") the obvious choice is FPL as a low cost provider.
Just for kicks...someone more familiar with the Homestead Co-op or what ever it is, start a new thread and price out how much it would cost to provide electric at FPL rates, Homestead rates, Solar power, windmill, gas generator, and dinosaur on a treadmill power. Hmmm....that would be something...I wonder what the smart civic/business decision would be?

Like just about every company in the United States, FPL is beholden to their customers.

Whiners...please don't feel defeated or victimized!!! Take action!! Start a petition, invent a solution to your problems (if the seriousness of the problem is perceived and not real, you will have a tougher go at it), and help out the community along the way!! Go get 'em boys! Take down the big nasty evil FPL!! What have they EVER done for you?! (of course, you should forget about the other 350 days out of the year if you want to keep hating them). What have they done for you LATELY!!


You got hit harder than Kendall, and yet you got the power back before they did. My point exactly.

last time with katrina,I got my power back in like the 6th day,now I got it back in the 3rd day,pretty sweet.(im in west kendall)

Welcome back MIA!!!! go back a page or two I posted a couple fresh pics...I was at 13th & Brickell on Monday noon...still blowing hard and not many folks outside...lots of sea water on Brickell though. As of thursday, Four Seasons had full power and internet access.
Good point Nimby...

speaking of whiners

Nowadays, huh? Sounds like you don't know much about Presidential history. Presdents have been doing this since there were US Presidents.Some will remember him that way. Sort of like how Archie Bunker always contended that Richard Nixon was the best President the US has ever had!!! Clearly you aren't thinking objectively to believe that and you for certain don't know much about Presdiential history to say GWB will be one of the worst in history. Unless he really blows it in the next 400 days. Carter left office in 1981, his legacy as President is a country that was run amok. If you were around then, you may remember gasoline rationing. I remember my family could not get gas on certain days (yes in America, and no, there wasn't a hurricane), double digit home mortgage rates, a botched hostage attempt in Iran, terrible relations with the Soviets, and an income tax bracket of 70%!!! Can you even imagine giving 70 cents of every dollar you earn to the government!?!??
Jimmy Carter has done a masterful job with his Public Relations campaign since he left office, and will likely go down as the most humanitarian Former President.
If you are to be objective, you could make a comparison of President George W. Bush and President Carter's humanitarian efforts during their terms. You would be very surprised (that is if you are thinking objectively).
For example, how about sending $15 Billion in aid to Africa?
Remember Live Aid (Feed the World song)? Under the leadership of Bob Gehldoff they raised 110 Million Pound Sterling for food aid to Africa. Not many would contend that was anything short of a well organized humanitarian effort. Certainly not me. 110M pounds is about $196 Million at todays exchange. For perspective, under the leadership of President George Bush, the United States gave 76 times more money than that!!!!
$15,000,000,000 is a lot to give to have anyone say that you aren't humanitarian.
Feel free to hate the President, and vote any way you like, but come on, give a little credit where it is due. Or in the absence of not saying something nice, just don't say anything at all!!

With GWB being buddy buddy with the Saudis (terrorists) we dont have to worry about an oil embargo, just massive profits from exxon at our expense. As for Nixon until he lost his mind he did a better job than bush. Bush has also given $200 billion to haliburton..uh I mean Iraq :sleepy: yes, thats it. Bob Gehldoff is a humanitarian and organized live aid and had contributions, bush gave OUR money to Africa thus making me a great humanitarian. All hail me. Carter gives time, next time you want to rant why not list the personal actions that would classify these two men (Carter and Bush) and compare them. I already know what you will find but feel free.

Im taking a class on International Health. Jimmy Carter wrote the foreword to the textbook. He's a great writer. I wish I could say the same about our current president.

True DGM he has written something along the line of 24 books, including childrens books.

Bob Gehldoff is a humanitarian and organized live aid and had contributions, bush gave OUR money to Africa thus making me a great humanitarian. All hail me. Carter gives time, next time you want to rant why not list the personal actions that would classify these two men (Carter and Bush) and compare them. I already know what you will find but feel free.Hmmm....let's decipher that logic.Bob Gehldoff is a humanitarian and organized live aid and had contributions,okay, Gelhdoff took a leadership role and collected contributions from you and me to donate to Africa. That is good, I'm all for it. He is a humanitarian.bush gave OUR money to Africa thus making me a great humanitarian.Bush took a leadership role and collected contributions from you and me to donate to Africa, but you say he is NOT a humanitarian.

Hmmmm...something isn't quite right here. Seems to me you would have to say given those criteria, both men are humanitarians. Good job to both! Leadership isn't easy, and it's nice to see them taking charge. Aren't you a little amazed that We/Bush gave 76 times more money than Live Aid...pretty impressive when you THINK about it.

Both men didn't have to do what they did, but they took action and and made a difference. It's a shame you can't give credit where credit is due. It really is sad.
I think that you just don't like Bush, and/or you may well have the inability to see good things in people. That is really a shame. Keep on hating if it makes you feel good and alows you to have plentiful personal relationships with the people you touch in your day to day life...but one day, I do hope you can be objective. I'll have much better confidence in the American school systems. They must not be teaching Presidential history, or anything about the Carter Administration.

Im taking a class on International Health. Jimmy Carter wrote the foreword to the textbook. He's a great writer. I wish I could say the same about our current president.Yeah, Carter is a good writer, I think Rider is correct, about 24 books in the last 24 years since he left office. That is very commendable. Did anyone read his book, Sources of Strength : Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith?

I'm of the opinion that the pap about Jimmy Carter being the best *former president* is just that - pap. First, other presidents have involved themselves in humaitarian puruits after serving. And second, Carter's reputation as a bungling and appeasing negotiater has certainly tarnished his image in that regard.

Great use of the word pap. I completely forgot about that word. Many ex-presidents have been parts of humanitarian efforts but few have been so involved in the process. Like I said the foreword to my International Health text book was written by Jimmy Carter. I think he has put much more thought into the issues of world health and sustainability than any other president.

I'm of the opinion that the pap about Jimmy Carter being the best *former president* is just that - pap. First, other presidents have involved themselves in humaitarian puruits after serving. And second, Carter's reputation as a bungling and appeasing negotiater has certainly tarnished his image in that regard.

Hmm yes the Camp David Accord and the Salt ll were pretty important I think. His opinion is respected in most corners of the world. Please compare what he has done to other former presidents. He earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, only two other presidents have done that.

DGM, Rider -

Not ascribing great significance to the UN, or the Nobel Peace Prize, no, I do not find Carter's acheivements terribly impressive. And I think he enjoys his international goodwill because he's just a nice guy.

But the world needs more than nice guys. And I just don't think Carter has/had the resources or the fortitude for leadership at the highest levels.

Hmmm....let's decipher that logic.okay, Gelhdoff took a leadership role and collected contributions from you and me to donate to Africa. That is good, I'm all for it. He is a humanitarian.Bush took a leadership role and collected contributions from you and me to donate to Africa, but you say he is NOT a humanitarian.

Hmmmm...something isn't quite right here. Seems to me you would have to say given those criteria, both men are humanitarians. Good job to both! Leadership isn't easy, and it's nice to see them taking charge. Aren't you a little amazed that We/Bush gave 76 times more money than Live Aid...pretty impressive when you THINK about it.

Both men didn't have to do what they did, but they took action and and made a difference. It's a shame you can't give credit where credit is due. It really is sad.
I think that you just don't like Bush, and/or you may well have the inability to see good things in people. That is really a shame. Keep on hating if it makes you feel good and alows you to have plentiful personal relationships with the people you touch in your day to day life...but one day, I do hope you can be objective. I'll have much better confidence in the American school systems. They must not be teaching Presidential history, or anything about the Carter Administration.


Sadly everything with Bush has a string attached, unlike Mr Gelhdoff (nature of a humanitarian maybe?) Bush has pledged to spend $15 billion in Africa and two caribbean nations on AIDS. There are problems with this of course, first you have to use brand name medicines (payback to the drug companies)

[/QUOTE]Bush came out last year and said "I’m giving $15bn to fight Aids in Africa", and then said, "but you’ve got to use branded medicines. And if you even think about using generics, we’ll stop all funding to projects in your country".[/QUOTE] http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/orphans.shtml
He has also done other things to cut that $15b that should be spent to treat people with aids
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.aids18oct18,1,1295994.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

Also None of the money is emergency money as claimed, none will actually come out of the budget till 2006 and of that $15 billion $500 will come from cuting international child health programs, not by say..raising taxes a bit.
http://www.50years.org/cms/ejn/story/74

Is Bob Gelhdoff doing this too?
I guess I feel for you that Im making you sad, really, but dont waste your time. See I think its sad that you cant see past the big R to find any fault in Bush, but that is not a suprise to me.
As for if they are teaching about Carter in school these days I have no idea, you would have to ask Nimby and Hatter that. But if you think I dont know about when he was president your wrong because I was alive at the time and can call upon my own memory thanks. I remember the lines at gas stations and high inflation and unemployment. Things like that dont just fall out of ones memory, or maybe they do with some people but not me. But I will just use the same line as republicans use and change only one word..he enherited the problems from Ford and Nixon (see how I cleverly changed it from Clinton?)

Well, we're all fairly partisan around here, aren't we ?

I can say that clinton had problems..lots of them, in fact I dont like him and I didnt vote for him the second time or for Gore. When was the last time you didnt vote for a republican running for president?

I can say that clinton had problems..lots of them, in fact I dont like him and I didnt vote for him the second time or for Gore. When was the last time you didnt vote for a republican running for president?

1996 when I voted for Harry Brown, the Libertarian candidate.

Now I'll readily confess that I'd be hardpressed to vote for a Democrat. Maybe on the local level.

Harry Brown? Really ok. Thank you for your honesty. I voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000. I actually voted for Republican for state house in 1996, he was a friend of mine and he won. He was actually very conservative but was responsive if I showed up at his office which I did a lot because I lived in the capital :)

I will say that our current government spends a lot of money on global efforts to fight AIDS, Malaria and TB. However I feel like some members of the administration are afraid to talk about the issues. I think you might all remember Bill Frist (who is a doctor) fumbling over facts like whether AIDS can be transmitted by tears. He's a doctor!! He has to know that it can't be transmitted by tears. I don't know why he was so unwilling to talk about it. And it is not just Frist that seems unwilling to talk about AIDS. How often has George Bush spoken about AIDS? Anyhow, I just can't respect an administration that is more willing to resort to cover-ups and the censorship of intellectual material instead of just coming out and talking openly with the public about problems.

bill frist is the biggest idiot and should have his medical license revoked
he was against stem cell research and as a doctor you have to think about the massive amount of benefit this would bring as opposed the the religious view that uptight republicans have....

what it comes down to is money....alot of pharmaceuticals would go bankrupt if there was a cure for diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, alzhiemers... i would have liked to see howard dean as president being that he and his wife are doctors. but the media trashed him and he lost favor instead they went with the war heroe kerry....

howard dean VT opened the way for gays and lesbians to equal rights he also fixed that states budget really a smart man that could have gone really far with health care and medicaid/medicare and social security.... what has president bush contributed as his legacy?

NOTHING

Sadly everything with Bush has a string attached If you say so. I guess I was wrong. You seem to have years of experience and a wonderful perspective on life. Perhaps I made a mistake. You're probably right, EVERYTHING with Bush has a string attached. And you are probably right that "George Bush will just be remembered as one of the worst presidents in the last century."
That was one of your original points wasn't it? Yes it was. Brilliantly defended and exemplified in your following posts.
I liked your point that Bush isn't a humanitarian because he required "brand medicines".
Great logic. Am I supposed to believe that brand medicines are bad?
If they are, then how about the ones that my cousin Lenny makes in his basement? Are they good? What a bad guy Bush must be to make sure that medicines are thouroughly tested and meet first world guidlines. That bad bad Bush guy should just give away money without any guildlines or stipulations or else how can he be consided a hymanitarian..

I guess I feel for you that Im making you sad, really, but dont waste your time. That's a good one...you don't have the power to make me sad or happy. It is funny that you think you might be able to do that though! Another good one!
See I think its sad that you cant see past the big R to find any fault in Bush, but that is not a suprise to me.Great logic again. When have I ever posted, stated, or believed that there is no fault in George W Bush? I haven't ever, ever, ever. So why would you just post that???
Of course he has faults, like any human being. I don't agree with every policy or decision. What do you mean "can't see past the big R"????
You are either not paying attention, blinded, stoned, young, mis-using you imagination, or a combination of these.

But I will just use the same line as republicans use and change only one word..he enherited the problems from Ford and Nixon (see how I cleverly changed it from Clinton?)I still don't get why you have to interject the Republican/Democrat thing again...but if you must.
I'm not sure of the extent that Carter inherited the Iranian hostage crises or not, but what is for sure is that he didn't lead them home.
And you're right, I am floored at how "cleverly" you just did that, whew! Amazing.
How did you approve of George W Bush's handling of his first International crises? Do you remember? Hint: It was a hostage crises too...

Don't be a hater Rider...give credit where credit is due...I'm not knocking anyone that has the balls to take on leadership rolls and take action to make things happen. That is one of the things that Americans are about.

I apologize for assuming that you were a 16 year old and had no clue as to Jimmy Carter's Presidency. Really, all I had to go on was the ideas that you were writing, and I guess I jumped to the wrong conclusion.

what has president bush contributed as his legacy? NOTHINGThis being a skyscraper forum, I'd think that you might have noticed that Mortgage have been at 40 yr lows. 8% during the last admin. and down to 5.5% in his admin. and there is incredible growth in just about every US state.
You might not have noticed that minority home ownership is at the highest level than it has EVER been.
You probably were hanging out with Rider and didn't notice that there are more minorities in the Cabinet than at ANY time in the history of the United States of America.
The US GDP exceeds $10 Trillion, productivity is at an all time high, women and minorities can vote in the US, Afghanistan, and Iraq for the first time in the history of the Universe...
And...
Oh forget it...maybe you are right. He hasn't written a book in the last 24 years. And it's true, he stumbled over few words in a speech that he gave when discussing the unprecedented progress in the middle east.
Not much of legacy there. W takes some tremendous political risks. He isn't going to please all the people all the time. I'd say, he is not going to please ANY of the people all the time. But he sure as hell is making an impact. To say that he has done NOTHING just isn't true, accurate, or well thought out.
Disagree if you will, but man, why is it necessary to demonize people that you disagree with?
Rider, you take Warren Harding and Jimmy Carter, I'll take W, and let's have a battle of the Presidential accomplishments!

This being a skyscraper forum, I'd think that you might have noticed that Mortgage have been at 40 yr lows. 8% during the last admin. and down to 5.5% in his admin. and there is incredible growth in just about every US state.
You might not have noticed that minority home ownership is at the highest level than it has EVER been.
You probably were hanging out with Rider and didn't notice that there are more minorities in the Cabinet than at ANY time in the history of the United States of America.
The US GDP exceeds $10 Trillion, productivity is at an all time high, women and minorities can vote in the US, Afghanistan, and Iraq for the first time in the history of the Universe...
And...
Oh forget it...maybe you are right. He hasn't written a book in the last 24 years. And it's true, he stumbled over few words in a speech that he gave when discussing the unprecedented progress in the middle east.
Not much of legacy there. W takes some tremendous political risks. He isn't going to please all the people all the time. I'd say, he is not going to please ANY of the people all the time. But he sure as hell is making an impact. To say that he has done NOTHING just isn't true, accurate, or well thought out.
Disagree if you will, but man, why is it necessary to demonize people that you disagree with?
Rider, you take Warren Harding and Jimmy Carter, I'll take W, and let's have a battle of the Presidential accomplishments!

I came to this site to talk about skyscrapers. The website is called SkyscraperCity.com. i came here to avoid seeing conversations about politics. I have my opinions too, and when i see u people talking about politics, i wanna throw in my 2 cents... but i don't, because thats not what i am in here for.

I wanna talk about freakin Skyscrapers!

now dammit!!!!.............. sorry...

imma go watch a movie now. i need to get out more.

I was the one that said that George Bush will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in the last century. I didn't try to defend it because I'm trying to study for a midterm tommorow. Ill try really quickly to defend it.

For one, George Bush's fight against terrorism is failed and dishonest. The reason for the Iraq war has changed from WMDs to seeding democracy to fighting them abroad so that we dont have to fight them here. The last of which is the most horrible thing I've ever heard. While it is good for Americans, it is horrible for Iraqis. It stirs up resentment towards America, which is what fuels terrorism.

Secondly, George Bush's administration is corrupt and inept. Three republican campaign advisors have plead guilty to jamming the phone lines of the Manchester Firefighters Union and the Democratic Party during the last election. At one time house majority leader, Tom Delay has been indicted for criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections. Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney, "Scooter" Libby has been indicted during the investigation of the unmasking CIA operative Valerie Plame. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been under investigation for insider trading. How many high ranking republicans have to go to jail before you start to lose trust in them? And you call me naive?

Lastly, I do not like the way that George Bush has dealt with the issue of sustainability. Scientists and health officials, hell even musicians, have been drumming up support for global efforts to switch to renewable resources? Maybe it is just because I'm a "liberal dumbass" or maybe it is because I attended a marine science magnet and took years of classes focused on sustainability, either way I feel that we are harming the world day by day. Our oceans are overfished, our skies are polluted, our icecaps are melting... What has to happen before someone steps in and says "Enough is enough, we need to start making drastic changes in the way we use resources" without thinking of the immediate but temporary backlash. It will take a man with courage and strong moral conviction.

Anyways that was longer than I thought it would be. I have a lot more to say but I have to get back to studying. We've gotten way off topic and I apologise for it. Anyways, go skyscrapers, screw hurricanes... etc.

imma go watch a movie now. i need to get out more.
You can't, thanks to our nazi puto-pendejo county mayor Carlos Alvarez's beloved curfew. God, I hate that bastard. Well, OK... I hate Barbara Carey-Schuler more for killing Central Parkway... but Alvarez is a close #2 by a razor-thin margin. This, more than anything, shows why the county mayor's power needs to be weakened instead of being given the dictator-like powers he craves.

Ah, the 'We've gotten off topic but ...' approach. ;)

Almost as effective as the 'I agree this thread ought to be closed...and I just wanted to add...' approach.

Oh Dale stop being a hater lol

This being a skyscraper forum, I'd think that you might have noticed that Mortgage have been at 40 yr lows. 8% during the last admin. and down to 5.5% in his admin. and there is incredible growth in just about every US state.
You might not have noticed that minority home ownership is at the highest level than it has EVER been.
You probably were hanging out with Rider and didn't notice that there are more minorities in the Cabinet than at ANY time in the history of the United States of America.
The US GDP exceeds $10 Trillion, productivity is at an all time high, women and minorities can vote in the US, Afghanistan, and Iraq for the first time in the history of the Universe...
And...
Oh forget it...maybe you are right. He hasn't written a book in the last 24 years. And it's true, he stumbled over few words in a speech that he gave when discussing the unprecedented progress in the middle east.
Not much of legacy there. W takes some tremendous political risks. He isn't going to please all the people all the time. I'd say, he is not going to please ANY of the people all the time. But he sure as hell is making an impact. To say that he has done NOTHING just isn't true, accurate, or well thought out.
Disagree if you will, but man, why is it necessary to demonize people that you disagree with?
Rider, you take Warren Harding and Jimmy Carter, I'll take W, and let's have a battle of the Presidential accomplishments!

Ah yes this is a great time to be in Iraq and Afganistan..well ok no its not. So they can vote and die standing in line at the hands of terrorists or Americans. I personally have no desire to die by either of them. Iraq is a disaster and its going backwards. Iraq was the most progressive society in the middle east for women till we got there, now its heading towards a fundamentalist muslim society where women have few rights. Good job Bush. Afganistan hasnt really changed much. Its still run by warlords like before we got there, in fact a third is still controlled by the Taliban, and where is the rascal Osama?
Oh and Roark I dont know if you have ever noticed that generic drugs cost a lot less than branded drugs. See lets do a little math 101 ok? If drug 1 costs $10 and the branded drug number 2 costs $100 a person can buy a lot more of drug 1 with that $100, right? Have I lost you? So if you start out with $15 billion you can buy ten times the amount of drugs and help a lot more people for a longer amount of time...you do get this, right? But ol Bush had to pay back the big drug companies (he has a bad habbit of helping corporations over people). Tisk tisk bushy is a tool.
As far as housing goes, thank you Mr Clinton for leaving us something bush didnt mess up (unlike the budget, Iraq, and pretty much anything he has touched).
As far as the hostage issue goes that was a long time in the coming. I mean of course you know the shah was a monster, a Saddam if you will. He deserved to be overthrown and had he not escaped there would not have been any hostages taken. The US had backed this madman for many many years, republicans and democrats. The only reason they took the hostages was because the US let the shah come here to get medical treatment, a bad idea. As for their release Carter did negotiate that and word on the street is that it would have been earlier but someones dad (who shall remain nameless) helped to sidetrack that. Oh well when you come from a long line of people who think money is more important than humanity that is what you get. Roark feel free to call me a hater, you will anyway but you sound a bit like one yourself to me.
Stumbled over a few words (not to mention all the lies he shoves into those speeches) HAHAHA oh God that is funny. Your hero thinks misunderestimates is a word, that its hard to keep food on your family..shall I go on? I wont. Im waiting for Bush to put out a book, it should be interesting.
Anyway I will take Mr Carter any day over Bush. A nobel prize winner over a...I have no idea what he is but I will take Carter. Where did Harding come from?

The word "misunderestimates" probably has Orwell rolling in his grave.

The word "misunderestimates" probably has Orwell rolling in his grave.

Although I'm given to understand that Orwell was a rightwinger.

Damn hood rats at the theaters... Saw II was all sold out... i'll wait for next weekend... when Jarhead comes out

Oh and Roark I dont know if you have ever noticed that generic drugs cost a lot less than branded drugs.I have noticed that the price of generic drugs are less...are you sure the cost is less? Let me give you an example to explain my point. My cousin Lenny makes a no brand pill in his basement for a dime. To buy one pill of the branded version the price would be $10. So the price of Lenny's generic is a dime and the other one's price is 100 times more. The branded pill has been researched and tested exhaustively and has very minimal side effects and manufactured to a very high level of consistency and purity. Lenny's pill is garaunteed to kill everyone that takes the pill because Lenny is a bona fide nitwit! For one bottle of Lenny's pills (100 count in each bottle), the price is $10. The COST is 100 dead people. Of course, this is an exaggeration so that you might get the point.
See lets do a little math 101 ok? If drug 1 costs $10 and the branded drug number 2 costs $100 a person can buy a lot more of drug 1 with that $100, right? Have I lost you?No...that is great work!! You are very well versed with the entry level mathematics. Impressive! So if you start out with $15 billion you can buy ten times the amount of drugs and help a lot more people for a longer amount of time...you do get this, right?Oohhhhh noooo! You were doing so well there with the numbers and then you just pulled something out of mid air. Man! I was really rooting for you. Where did you make the assumption that you can "help a lot more people for a longer amount of time"? (see Lenny's pill above).
Where did that come from??? If it's cheap then it's good??? How is that necessarily true?
Look...back up a bit...this has gotten silly.
I say giving $15 Billion to aid Africa is good.
You think it is good if Jimmy Carter or Bob Gehldoff do it but not if the humanitarian deed is performed by someone you hate.
Let's leave it at that.
Hitler loved dogs and brushed his teeth everyday. Just because you might hate the guy, you should still probably brush your teeth.
Your hero thinks misunderestimates is a word, that its hard to keep food on your family..shall I go on? I wont.My hero??? Rider, that isn't true. Why do you just pull things out of the air and post them as fact. How do you reason that my hero is George W Bush??? You really aren't reasoning are you....Hatter will tell you, my hero is Revuelta!! :)

Your contention was that GW would go down in history as one of the worst Presidents in the last century. I threw out Harding to see if you were thinking about any other President except for the Presidents of the last 25 years. Guess you weren't really thinking that much. Maybe when you posted that, you were just pulling something out of the air.

Roark

i tend to disagree that while there are women voting in afghanistan we are loosing civil liberties here every day....

immigration and police could not work hand in hand in the past it was against the law becuase they would round up people for mass deportations and it would deter from real crime fighting.... today under the patriot act they are a disorganized mess

your house car can now be searched without a search warrant
your phone can be bugged without probable cause
your medical file can be attained and viewed by anyone who works for the us gov including postal workers(the same postal workers who steal checks and atm cards out of the mail)

so what good is it that women somewhere else can vote when the voting here is rigged... did you know that in dade county alone there where over 100k votes not counted and discarded. 80k in broward that where found in a warehouse. places like ohio where there where 400 registered voters ended up having 15k votes...remarkably you dont know the evil that has been brewing in that white house...

as for housing interest rates the rate has been the lowest becuase there is no money and one has to encourage lower income people to become homeowners so taxes will be collected and the govt budget can balance itself.
instead every tom dick and harry is investing in housing. what are tycoons doing? pulling out and selling there realestate portfolios its a dangerous game
we are going to experience one of the highest housing gluts in us history...

florida i believe will be one of the most least affected becuase we are a self sustaining system...overall bush has not done anything to improve the economy everything that has happened has been trends...

gas itself is at 3dollars by the time bush leaves office we will be seeing prices closer to 4 dollars and there will be no stopping it.... this country will not go into a depression to many people(countries) count on us. but bad days are ahead of us....

overall study us economy and as an average stocks do 14% better with democrats in office as opposed to 5-6% with a republican in office i would debate more but its senseless to teach a cripple how to walk and blind man to see... i think i will have better luck trying to get a whore to give up the trade on biscayne before i change your views....

overall i will be here years from now and although i hate saying it (i told you so) will be the catch phrase of the first quarter of this century.....

now on that note while there still exist a democratic govt in the usa i motion that this forum be closed anyone second that motion or object?

what the heavens happened to this thread?

Roark

i tend to disagree that while there are women voting in afghanistan we are loosing civil liberties here every day....

immigration and police could not work hand in hand in the past it was against the law becuase they would round up people for mass deportations and it would deter from real crime fighting.... today under the patriot act they are a disorganized mess

your house car can now be searched without a search warrant
your phone can be bugged without probable cause
your medical file can be attained and viewed by anyone who works for the us gov including postal workers(the same postal workers who steal checks and atm cards out of the mail)

so what good is it that women somewhere else can vote when the voting here is rigged... did you know that in dade county alone there where over 100k votes not counted and discarded. 80k in broward that where found in a warehouse. places like ohio where there where 400 registered voters ended up having 15k votes...remarkably you dont know the evil that has been brewing in that white house...

as for housing interest rates the rate has been the lowest becuase there is no money and one has to encourage lower income people to become homeowners so taxes will be collected and the govt budget can balance itself.
instead every tom dick and harry is investing in housing. what are tycoons doing? pulling out and selling there realestate portfolios its a dangerous game
we are going to experience one of the highest housing gluts in us history...

florida i believe will be one of the most least affected becuase we are a self sustaining system...overall bush has not done anything to improve the economy everything that has happened has been trends...

gas itself is at 3dollars by the time bush leaves office we will be seeing prices closer to 4 dollars and there will be no stopping it.... this country will not go into a depression to many people(countries) count on us. but bad days are ahead of us....

overall study us economy and as an average stocks do 14% better with democrats in office as opposed to 5-6% with a republican in office i would debate more but its senseless to teach a cripple how to walk and blind man to see... i think i will have better luck trying to get a whore to give up the trade on biscayne before i change your views....

overall i will be here years from now and although i hate saying it (i told you so) will be the catch phrase of the first quarter of this century.....

now on that note while there still exist a democratic govt in the usa i motion that this forum be closed anyone second that motion or object?

Why do you lefties always think you should get the last tag ?

My International Health teacher was at one time the head of the multimillion dollar USAID central american branch. I'll ask her one day what she thinks of generic drugs. I bet she will be a supporter. Oh and making the assumption that some guy named Lenny makes killer drugs is so far fetched. Companies like CVS make generic drugs not Lenny. It is kind of funny that you attacked the assumption that rider made, that someone was buying $15 billion in drugs. The global fund probably spends over a billion. So, while he was off he was not off by much. Anyhow this thread has reached the final stage, discrediting what the last person said.

I second the motion to close this thread....

Skyscrapers anyone?

I blame it all on Wilma...

Rx, DGM I agree with you guys and I agree with Dale and Grove time to close this thread and move on..without Lenny.

well, as written in my post, I was there on Monday at noon, and looked at Esprito Santo "with my own eyes", amazingly, I didnt' see any "FLOORS of Espirito blown out" the building was the exact same height, and had the exact same number of floors as when I looked at it Friday...
There are a lot of holes in the windows on the South facade.
In case you hadn't really walked around the building or have no imagination, there are four sides to the building. Only one sustained damage, the south side.
In case you missed my point, it was that people shouldn't get prone to hyperbole and exaggeration. Even though you probably believe in your brain that "entire floors where blown up", that isn't true.
If someone from Orlando, or somewhere else reads your post, they might believe that Espirito Santo was poorly constructed. That isn't true. Only one side of 4 (25%) was damaged and out of the 200 or so windows, only 90 were broken (45%of that side, times 25% of the building or 2.25% of the windows were broken)...please, let's leave the exaggeratioin to WSVN and the Herald.
And from my observation, the EsSanto buildings damage was mostly broken windows that looked like projectiles broke them, not by entire windows popping out of their frames.

Oh and Roark, one last thing. As for making fun of my math skills..it was you who posted a failure in math 101 here. The number is 11.25% of the windows were broken, maybe you want to rework this.

what the heavens happened to this thread?

who knows?

well it is wilma's fault, we wouldnt have had this thread if it wasnt 4 her.
:bash:

who knows?

well it is wilma's fault, we wouldnt have had this thread if it wasnt 4 her.
:bash:

I blame FPL :hahaha:

^ Politics will kill any thread...most of us here lean to the left...urbanists & architects are liberals for the most part...let's just profess our love for Miami and move on.

The Herald's take on the storm and how it will effect the building boom:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13026529.htm

Can S. Fla.'s construction boom weather Wilma?

BY MATTHEW HAGGMAN

mhaggman@herald.com


First came worries of overbuilding and fears speculators were fueling a real-estate bubble in South Florida. Then came soaring construction costs, a shortage of skilled workers and rising insurance costs. Then bankers pulled back on lending.

Those mounting pressures already have killed a few high-rise condominium projects before they got out of the ground. Many developers and public officials -- though upbeat about the region long-term -- now predict many of the planned projects will never materialize.

But now the pressure has ratcheted up. The culprit: Hurricane Wilma.

The storm's fierce winds whipsawed work sites -- toppling a crane in Hallandale Beach -- and punched gaping holes in gleaming towers along Miami's Brickell Avenue and in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Some 35 percent of Fort Lauderdale's downtown office space was initially left ''not functional for use,'' according to the Broward County Economic Development agency, and a several offices on Miami's Brickell Avenue remained off-limits behind yellow police tape. Glass panes -- and, in the case of the Wachovia Financial Center in downtown Miami, granite tiles -- were still falling from high-rise towers two days after Wilma moved on.

Damage assessments are still being tallied, but repairs to buildings disfigured by the storm -- such as the Templeton building in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the high-rise at 2121 Ponce de Leon Blvd. in Coral Gables or the Espirito Santo Plaza in Miami -- will cost many millions and require untold work hours. Importantly, it will likely exacerbate problems dogging the building boom.

POSSIBLE TIPPING POINT

Many observers insist the storm amounts to but a momentary slowdown in South Florida's high-rise construction blitz. But could the storm be the financial and psychological tipping point that finally slows the region's historic boom?

''Wilma, for a lot of these guys, is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back,'' said Michael Baumann, co-chairman of BCOM, which is building the 1800 Club, a high-rise condo in Miami.

The reason: The storm could drive skyrocketing construction costs higher still and add to the scramble for skilled workers. Insurance premiums will likely rise higher, and lenders may pull back more.

Many developers, particularly those who pre-sold condo units before construction costs escalated, were already grappling with shrinking profit margins and struggling to find workers to actually build the high-rises.

''We are already at maximum capacity,'' said Tom Murphy, Jr., CEO of Coastal Construction in Miami, which builds high-rise condos in Broward, Miami-Dade and elsewhere. 'Now there are a lot of buildings that must be fixed. But who does it? If someone asked if we could fix the Broward School Board building in Broward I would say `No.' We have no one to do it.''

RIGHT ON TRACK

To be sure, developers declare they are going forward. For instance, Alan Ojeda, chief executive of Rilea Group in Miami, said plans are on track to build a Brickell Avenue office tower across from the Four Seasons Hotel & Tower, which was battered in the storm. Ojeda just finished an apartment rental high-rise one block off Brickell called One Broadway, which survived the storm in better shape than many Brickell Avenue buildings, like the Greenberg Traurig building, J.W. Marriott hotel or the Colonial Bank building.

But he predicted construction costs and insurance rates will rise and already tight labor markets will be further squeezed.

Some predict this will produce a Darwinian effect among the many developers currently vying to build new high-rise towers. ''At the end of the day, the experienced developers will handle this,'' said Craig Studnicky, executive vice president of International Sales Group, which markets high-rise condos for developers across South Florida and Las Vegas. ``It is those neophyte developers who have come into this business because real estate is trendy -- they will not know how to handle this.''

Then too, some prospective buyers may fall by the wayside -- especially with experts predicting an era of busy hurricane seasons the next 10 to 20 years.

''We are a place to retire,'' said R. Donahue Peebles, the Coral Gables-based developer behind the new Bath Club condominium on Miami Beach

``Now they're bussing people out of nursing homes to shelters. This is a serious problem.''

On the other hand, the U.S. Census predicts that by the next decade Florida will become the third most populous state in the country, surpassing New York, and experience the third-highest population growth rate in the country, behind Nevada and Arizona, over the next 25 years.

Yet, if Hurricane Wilma does undercut new construction, it wouldn't be the first time a hurricane whacked the industry. South Florida's great building boom of the 1920s -- second only to the region's current building boom -- was halted by the Hurricane of 1926 (the U.S. Weather Bureau didn't start naming hurricanes until 1953). ''It put the final nail in the coffin,'' said historian Paul George.

PREVIOUS BOOM

Many of Miami's most famous buildings were constructed during the frenzied 1920s, including Dade County Courthouse, Freedom Tower and Ingraham Building in downtown Miami. Miami Shores, Hialeah and Coral Gables all emerged during those go-go days.

While market watchers were fretting about an ''adjustment'' to the 1920s building boom, George said, the Sept. 17, 1926, storm completely erased it. ``Physically and psychologically, it cut out the last of our legs.''

Few suggest the same will happen now. ''This hurricane was not anywhere as lethal as 1926,'' George said. ``We will move on.''

But developer Ojeda asserted that with various South Florida buildings faring so poorly in Hurricane Wilma, builders cannot simply return to business as usual. Instead, he said, responsible builders will now have to reevaluate their techniques and make sure they use the best materials to avoid another scene of blocks of downtown Fort Lauderdale and Brickell Avenue covered by glass shards.

''Not acknowledging this is the biggest irresponsibility any developer can do,'' Ojeda said.

SIGNS OF SLOWDOWN

Moreover, the current boom is already showing signs of slowing.

While developers continue filing plans for new high-rises at a furious rate, Florida's biggest and one of its most experienced developers, Jorge Perez of the Related Group of Florida, says he's backing off. Perez has a bevy of projects underway in South Florida, but is no longer looking for new projects in the region because prices have gotten too rich.

''There is no question that profits have been squeezed,'' Perez said recently. ``As the market has gotten overheated, land prices have gotten really prohibitive.''

And financing construction of a new building is harder than it was earlier this year, said Timothy Martorella, managing director of Madison Capital Group in Miami, which finds financing for construction projects.

''The hurricane is more one more log on the fire,'' -- along with pressures of construction costs, insurance, labor and financing -- Martorella said. ``I don't see anything good coming out of it.''

But he suspects the implications are purely short-term.

''There are certainly possibilities for shifts in the market or temporary perceptions of a shift,'' Martorella said. ``But after a month, I think we will get back to where we were before Wilma swept through.''

With GWB being buddy buddy with the Saudis (terrorists) we dont have to worry about an oil embargo, just massive profits from exxon at our expense. As for Nixon until he lost his mind he did a better job than bush. Bush has also given $200 billion to haliburton..uh I mean Iraq :sleepy: yes, thats it. Bob Gehldoff is a humanitarian and organized live aid and had contributions, bush gave OUR money to Africa thus making me a great humanitarian. All hail me. Carter gives time, next time you want to rant why not list the personal actions that would classify these two men (Carter and Bush) and compare them. I already know what you will find but feel free.
Yea um I want you to take out the whole thing with you calling Saudies terrorists.True Usama bi laden and some other terrorists have come from Saudi Arabia,But most of the population hate Al quadi.Now if you can give me a good reasonon the calling of Saudis terrorists then I'll drop my case,but til now my impressions of you have gone down a lot.

Roark
as for housing interest rates the rate has been the lowest becuase there is no money and one has to encourage lower income people to become homeowners so taxes will be collected and the govt budget can balance itself.What??? You posted it, but do you really believe that interest rates are low because there is no money??? Can you name one useful thing that gets cheaper when it is more scarce?
what are tycoons doing? pulling out and selling there realestate portfolios its a dangerous game
we are going to experience one of the highest housing gluts in us history...To answer your question, the tycoons that I know are buying real estate and selling real estate. The same thing that they have been doing for 20 years. Sometimes they allocate funds to grocery anchored shopping centers...somethimes repositioning opporutnities...sometimes multifamily residential, in fact, the ones that I'm meeting with tomorrow will be buying real estate, not pulling out. You asked, right?
"and one has to encourage lower income people to become homeowners" uuhhh...what are you saying? Do you think it is good or bad for people to own homes? I think homeownership is good. I do my best to encourage my little brother to buy real estate when he can, it that encouragement bad?
What do you mean by tycoon? And since when are you concerned about tycoons?

Astonishing...I like this one the best...."pulling out and selling there realestate portfolios its a dangerous game " Really?!?! How many deaths per day are caused from tycoons buying and selling real estate? It's not a dangerous game, it is a business for people that are astute enough to do so. Not everyone is an astute business person, but selling real estate now is probably one of the best times to do it...how is that dangerous?
i would debate more but its senseless to teach a cripple how to walk and blind man to see... i think i will have better luck trying to get a whore to give up the trade on biscayne before i change your views....It's really not a matter of changing my views, most of the time it's easy to see many different points of view and then use intellect and experience to elvaluate facts. When it comes to the real estate and finance, the last few decades have taught me a bit about supply and demand. I always thought that if there was plenty of money that interest rates got low and maybe prices inflate. You seem to think the opposite. Or at least you posted that "the rate has been the lowest becuase there is no money". You will definitely have a hard time convincing me of that. You probably shouldn't try to educate me anymore...I'm a bad Grasshopper. If I don't agree with your point of view I must be stupid.
Did you really post "I would debate, but it's senseless to teach a cripple to walk." Nice.

Let me go the record again as saying that whatever color I am or how I vote is not nearly as important as the ideas.
I say most of us are Americans and we don't have to fight.
I say anyone who gives $15 Billion or $196 Million to help out those that need help are humanitarian.

Who's all for giving up on the malicious name calling?

Construction projects in limbo

Projects delayed weeks as profits suffer

By Paul Owers
Business writer

October 30, 2005

They were this close to the Nov. 10 opening. Developers of the new Downtown at the Gardens entertainment complex were waiting for final building inspections. Managers at The Cheesecake Factory were ready to train servers. And workers at the 16-screen Cobb Theatres megaplex had done most of the heavy lifting and were just getting around to touching up lobby decorations.

Then came Hurricane Wilma, barreling in from the Yucatan. The storm clobbered South Florida and tossed around trees and caused electrical and water damage at Downtown, arguably Palm Beach Gardens' most anticipated retail development in years.

One of the anchor tenants, Whole Foods Market, managed to open 48 hours after Wilma, but the balance of the upscale project will be delayed by two weeks, maybe more.

"It was the worst time in the world for this," said Rob Jacoby, an executive with Menin Development Cos., which is building the center just off PGA Boulevard. "We're going to work with the city and try to be open for the holiday season."

Wilma has toyed with construction schedules all across South Florida. Projects will be delayed weeks, if not months, cutting into profits for frazzled developers who are scrambling to line up laborers and materials that already were in short supply even before the hurricane.

"Wilma will no doubt have an impact, especially coupled with the events of (hurricanes) Katrina and Rita," said John de Olazarra, a principal at Hollywood-based Properties Group, a commercial real estate firm. "Inevitably, when you have a casualty event like this, there are going to be delays."

Developers are resorting to extraordinary measures to keep from falling further behind schedule.

The gas crisis has forced Menin to find temporary housing for subcontractors so they don't have to drive to and from work.

Palm Beach Gardens developer Dan Catalfumo paid workers to stand in line for gas so he could distribute fuel to all 300 of his employees. Fort Lauderdale developer Alan Hooper went to Brevard County and brought back enough gas for his employees.

Hooper's also providing workers with sandwiches to take home at night so they don't have to waste time searching for food.

"It's pretty stressful," said John Dowd, senior vice president of development for the Goodman Co. in West Palm Beach. "I think this will set things back 30 to 45 days across the region."

Wilma certainly will push back the $1.4 billion redevelopment of Riviera Beach, said Ben DeVries, a Palm Beach Gardens real estate broker who is serving as a consultant to the project. It also is expected to delay redevelopment of the Tiara, a 320-unit condominium in Riviera that was damaged during last year's storms.

In Fort Lauderdale, The Related Group of Florida was hoping to get final development approval Monday on the Hyde Park Market site after seven years of lawsuits. Related's Barbara Salk doesn't know when that might happen now.

"With a lack of communications and trying to get workers back to job sites, it's a little early to tell what the major impacts are going to be," Salk said.

Wilma ripped out the second floor of the Bamboo Flats under construction in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Developer Ron Mastriana expects that to cost the residential project a month. And the insurance deductible could be as high as $200,000.

"There's a major cost factor," Mastriana said. "But I'm an optimist. It's the risk you take when you take on development in Fort Lauderdale. We're all lucky to be in Florida and to have buyers. The economy is better than it is up north and usually we have good weather."

Miami-based Adler Development Inc. feels the effects of Wilma in a number of different ways, said Jose Martinez, the company's executive vice president.

Adler is planning Deerfield Commons, a 30,000-square-foot shopping center in Deerfield Beach. With the city shut down last week, the entire permitting process stopped.

At another Adler project, the 50,000-square-foot Stirling Town Center shopping plaza in Cooper City, construction ended after the storm because subcontractors didn't have enough gas to drive to and from work, Martinez said.

"Almost all of our jobs have stopped," he said. "Hopefully, the personnel will start to show up at our job sites (this) week."

And even when work does resume, Martinez is concerned about the cost and availability of materials, such as roofing tiles, lumber and glass.

Some materials that were expected in four to six weeks before Wilma now might take as long as 12 weeks and cost considerably more, Martinez said.

"Everybody's going to want to get their orders in," he said. "We're probably going to see South Florida roofing orders double or triple from what manufacturers are normally used to."

If delays aren't costly enough, some developers will have to shell out even more money to accommodate existing retail tenants whose stores were damaged during Wilma.

While developers wait for impact-resistant glass to be manufactured and delivered, many will install regular float glass temporarily so the tenants can open for business and display merchandise.

"You have to keep tenants happy, even if you have the expense of doing something temporarily," Martinez said. "You use your resources and do your best."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-sbconstruction29oct30,0,4685725.story?coll=sfla-business-headlines

Yea um I want you to take out the whole thing with you calling Saudies terrorists.True Usama bi laden and some other terrorists have come from Saudi Arabia,But most of the population hate Al quadi.Now if you can give me a good reasonon the calling of Saudis terrorists then I'll drop my case,but til now my impressions of you have gone down a lot.

It’s a comparison to the Iraqi people. Do you think there are more dots to connect in Saudi Arabia than in Iraq? I do. I believe that the wealthy people in Saudi actually have funded terrorists. As for the vast majority of the Saudis they are just like people everywhere else, just people trying to make it day by day and there so called leadership helps to fuel the flames that created Al quada and they are still doing it. I withdraw the statement that Saudis in general are terrorists, but I still maintain that it is probably the world’s major source of terrorism.

Construction projects in limbo

Projects delayed weeks as profits suffer

By Paul Owers
Business writer

October 30, 2005

They were this close to the Nov. 10 opening. Developers of the new Downtown at the Gardens entertainment complex were waiting for final building inspections. Managers at The Cheesecake Factory were ready to train servers. And workers at the 16-screen Cobb Theatres megaplex had done most of the heavy lifting and were just getting around to touching up lobby decorations.

Then came Hurricane Wilma, barreling in from the Yucatan. The storm clobbered South Florida and tossed around trees and caused electrical and water damage at Downtown, arguably Palm Beach Gardens' most anticipated retail development in years.

One of the anchor tenants, Whole Foods Market, managed to open 48 hours after Wilma, but the balance of the upscale project will be delayed by two weeks, maybe more.

"It was the worst time in the world for this," said Rob Jacoby, an executive with Menin Development Cos., which is building the center just off PGA Boulevard. "We're going to work with the city and try to be open for the holiday season."

Wilma has toyed with construction schedules all across South Florida. Projects will be delayed weeks, if not months, cutting into profits for frazzled developers who are scrambling to line up laborers and materials that already were in short supply even before the hurricane.

"Wilma will no doubt have an impact, especially coupled with the events of (hurricanes) Katrina and Rita," said John de Olazarra, a principal at Hollywood-based Properties Group, a commercial real estate firm. "Inevitably, when you have a casualty event like this, there are going to be delays."

Developers are resorting to extraordinary measures to keep from falling further behind schedule.

The gas crisis has forced Menin to find temporary housing for subcontractors so they don't have to drive to and from work.

Palm Beach Gardens developer Dan Catalfumo paid workers to stand in line for gas so he could distribute fuel to all 300 of his employees. Fort Lauderdale developer Alan Hooper went to Brevard County and brought back enough gas for his employees.

Hooper's also providing workers with sandwiches to take home at night so they don't have to waste time searching for food.

"It's pretty stressful," said John Dowd, senior vice president of development for the Goodman Co. in West Palm Beach. "I think this will set things back 30 to 45 days across the region."

Wilma certainly will push back the $1.4 billion redevelopment of Riviera Beach, said Ben DeVries, a Palm Beach Gardens real estate broker who is serving as a consultant to the project. It also is expected to delay redevelopment of the Tiara, a 320-unit condominium in Riviera that was damaged during last year's storms.

In Fort Lauderdale, The Related Group of Florida was hoping to get final development approval Monday on the Hyde Park Market site after seven years of lawsuits. Related's Barbara Salk doesn't know when that might happen now.

"With a lack of communications and trying to get workers back to job sites, it's a little early to tell what the major impacts are going to be," Salk said.

Wilma ripped out the second floor of the Bamboo Flats under construction in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Developer Ron Mastriana expects that to cost the residential project a month. And the insurance deductible could be as high as $200,000.

"There's a major cost factor," Mastriana said. "But I'm an optimist. It's the risk you take when you take on development in Fort Lauderdale. We're all lucky to be in Florida and to have buyers. The economy is better than it is up north and usually we have good weather."

Miami-based Adler Development Inc. feels the effects of Wilma in a number of different ways, said Jose Martinez, the company's executive vice president.

Adler is planning Deerfield Commons, a 30,000-square-foot shopping center in Deerfield Beach. With the city shut down last week, the entire permitting process stopped.

At another Adler project, the 50,000-square-foot Stirling Town Center shopping plaza in Cooper City, construction ended after the storm because subcontractors didn't have enough gas to drive to and from work, Martinez said.

"Almost all of our jobs have stopped," he said. "Hopefully, the personnel will start to show up at our job sites (this) week."

And even when work does resume, Martinez is concerned about the cost and availability of materials, such as roofing tiles, lumber and glass.

Some materials that were expected in four to six weeks before Wilma now might take as long as 12 weeks and cost considerably more, Martinez said.

"Everybody's going to want to get their orders in," he said. "We're probably going to see South Florida roofing orders double or triple from what manufacturers are normally used to."

If delays aren't costly enough, some developers will have to shell out even more money to accommodate existing retail tenants whose stores were damaged during Wilma.

While developers wait for impact-resistant glass to be manufactured and delivered, many will install regular float glass temporarily so the tenants can open for business and display merchandise.

"You have to keep tenants happy, even if you have the expense of doing something temporarily," Martinez said. "You use your resources and do your best."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-sbconstruction29oct30,0,4685725.story?coll=sfla-business-headlines

Well, this is depressing. I was happier when we had a toxic political slugfest going.

Ok back to Wilma, here are a few more pictures.
Brickell
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5171824.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5178669.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5178722.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5178995.jpg

Downtown
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5178883.jpg

Miami Beach
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5177235.jpg

Ok, either Sunny Isles or Golden Beach
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5193286.jpg

:eek2:

Dale

First of all i am a rightwing republican becuase of my paycheck which exceeds over 1/4 of what one would call a million....

Second i Voted For John Kerry Becuase i Know that theres a bush agenda
and that the price of war and the interest im not gaining in stocks becuase of this ruined economy will not cover my tax break...i believe bush is a moron
when it comes to math and that he is a pawn... but smart when it comes to deception and thievery. or either maybe he just doesnt have a clue that he is the fall guy when it all comes out in the light.

Third i think religion is interfering with govt policy i support equal rights for gays the right for women to have an abortion and im pro stem cell research

So let me clarify that im a true republican as opposed to you who probably chose your political party i was born into mine...

im a republican but i voted democrat this past election and im proud to say that.

Ok, either Sunny Isles or Golden Beach
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5193286.jpg

Wow, I wasn't aware Sunny Isles had that kind of water damage. How high was that sea wall on the western edge? I would think it would be at least 6 feet. I wouldn't have expected a 6 foot storm surge on Maule Lake!!

Heres another picture from that same area. I dont think I would have wanted to stick around in those houses
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5193311.jpg

Also in Sunny Isles
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/wilma_florida_wideweb__430x290.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/160_ap_wilma_fla1_051025.jpg

First of all i am a rightwing republican becuase of my paycheck which exceeds over 1/4 of what one would call a million.... :dunno:

Second i Voted For John Kerry Becuase i Know that theres a bush agendaIt shouldn't be a surprise that leaders have agendas, it's pretty hard to make any difference without one. What you probably mean to say is that you don't agree with George Bush's agenda.
ruined economy will not cover my tax breakThe US economy really isn't ruined. It just isn't. FACT.
It is probably safe to say the the US has never had a ruined economy (not even the depression era). Some times are better than others in the US.
I'm grateful and happy with the current economy, it's okay if you are unhappy and think that it's ruined.

Here are a couple pics sent to me by a friend of a friend. Not sure exactly what residential building that is...I think its one of those just south of the Jade and the water is coming up over Brickell Bay Drive. The water in the intersection helps explain why all the fish in our company parking lot!!!!
http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/gordonbeirsch.jpg

http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/casawillma21.jpg

I hate it when people claim to vote for someone because of their salary. It just seems so shallow. Anyhow, George Bush is definately a radical conservative. I could see why a lot of conservatives wouldn't support him.

Rider those pictures are insane. I had no idea that the storm surge was so high in south florida. It looks like those houses are being swept off to sea.

Here are a couple pics sent to me by a friend of a friend. Not sure exactly what residential building that is...I think its one of those just south of the Jade and the water is coming up over Brickell Bay Drive. The water in the intersection helps explain why all the fish in our company parking lot!!!!
http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/gordonbeirsch.jpg

http://www.restainer.com/skyscrapers/casawillma21.jpg

This suprises me since I don't think the Brickell area got much in the way of winds from the East. Most of the winds were from the South. I guess this must have been water that came up from directly south of the Four Seasons (about where the Palace is) and it must have flowed down Brickell Bay Dr.

Im sure I dont want that view out my window, this one would be nice:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/IMG_0656.jpg

but anyway here are some more pics of brickell and wilma
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5209875.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5209872.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5209861.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5209857.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5184841.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5183443.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5180021.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5178683.jpg

and finally the question that was on everyones mind
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5196422.jpg

and finally the question that was on everyones mind
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b123/rider_of_rohan3019/5196422.jpg

Repairing a brittle power grid that would be considered substandard and unacceptable even in a poor third-world country :mad:

China is by no means wealthy... but can you even imagine 98% of Shanghai or Hong Kong being without electricity for more than a week after even the most devastating typhoon (and they get hit by plenty of 'em)? If it ever happened, power company execs would probably get sent to prison and/or be executed for allowing it to happen in the first place...

The United States is the only country on earth where it's considered not only acceptable, but normal to have millions of people without power, for days or weeks at a time, year after f**king year. That's just wrong. If burying power lines and putting substations in concrete bunkers increases electric bills by $25/month, so be it. Sometimes, reliability is more important than maximum cost-efficiency. That's why stores like Blockbuster still pay thousands of dollars per month for DS-1 connections with guaranteed uptime instead of spending $50/month on DSL. When their network connection to HQ is down, the can't do business. So downtime must NEVER (statistically) happen, period.

99% uptime is cheap. 99.99999% uptime is expensive. However, 99% uptime means having no power for 3.675 days/year, which simply isn't acceptable. 99.9% uptime drops the downtime to ~8 hours/year, which would probably be tolerable and could probably be achieved reasonably well by burying everything BUT the high-voltage long-distance transmission lines... which could be repaired or routed around within a matter of hours after the storm, thereby meeting a 99.9% uptime goal.

PHASE 1: bury the "last mile" lines between the substations and customers... the ones that ALWAYS go down any time a tropical storm passes within a hundred miles of Dade County...

PHASE 2: fortify the substations so they'll be invulnerable to anything less than cat4, and likely to survive even cat5.

PHASE 3 (long-term): bury transmission lines serving high-density areas... ALL THE WAY to where they connect up with the ultra-high-voltage cross-country grid.

Repairing a brittle power grid that would be considered substandard and unacceptable even in a poor third-world country :mad:

The United States is the only country on earth where it's considered not only acceptable, but normal to have millions of people without power, for days or weeks at a time, year after f**king year. That's just wrong.

i'm usually on yourside miamicanes,but this time i think your wrong many thirdworld nations have power shortages that last many days and weeks,and they occur frequently

Well... ok... there are poor third-world countries with unreliable power.

My point is that there are lots of countries that are considered "poor" and "third-world" relative to one of the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful states in one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful countries that nevertheless would consider it unthinkable to put power lines aboveground in big cities that get hit with multiple hurricanes/typhoons per year.

Can anyone seriously imagine...

*80% of the London metro area, and 50% of the UK between Cambridge and Ashford, being without power for more than a week?

* 80% of the Paris metro area, and 50% of the area stretching out to Disneyland being without power for more than a week?

* 80% of Amsterdam, and 50% of the upper 2/3 of the Netherlands being without power for more than a week?

... etc?

Of course not. They don't just have lines buried, they have multiple levels of redundancy to make sure that nothing can do that kind of widespread damage.

For years, the British Government has spent BILLIONS of pounds building deep tunnels for use by high-voltage power transmission lines into London. Not trenches... deep, mined-out tunnels far below the surface and safe from terrorists & natural disasters. They were originally motivated by fears of IRA sabotage to surface infrastructure, but have been even more aggressively expanded over the past few years due to increasing fears of terrorist attacks by Al Quaeda and others. Nobody even tries to argue it's cost-effective. It's just taken as a given that London must never be without power for any extended period of time, regardless of how much it costs to make sure it never happens. Why should Miami be any different?

^ At least it sounds as though your willing to pay for the improvements necessary to make the grid hurricane-impervious. Sounds like lots of other folks just want folks other than themselves to pony up.

The way I look at it is simple... feeding a 7-kilowatt generator costs $30-50/day, and requires trips to the gas station at least every other day (I really don't like the idea of storing more than 20 gallons of gas on the back porch, or carrying that much in my trunk, for that matter...). If the state finances the undergrounding with 25, 50, or even hundred-year bonds and services the debt by monthly "infrastructure improvement" charges (like the manhole charge), even at $150 billion dollars to underground the state, it'll still add up to less per year than I'm spending just to feed the generator right now. Not to mention the inconvenience, stress, and general grief caused by widespread power outages.

One of FPL's "scare tactics" is to claim that financing the entire state's undergrounding would add $85 or more per month to electric bills... then quietly mention that the amount assumes a 10-year payback. Stretch the payment term to 25 years, and the amount falls to $45 or so. Stretch it to 50 years, and it becomes around $25/month. Suddenly, even FPL's $150-billion "Unfathomably Expensive" scenario doesn't look quite so unaffordable after all... especially in light of the fact that we're likely to have violent, nasty hurricane seasons for at least another decade or two before things settle down again.

In the meantime, drive carefully. The guy in front of you just might have 20 gallons of gas in his trunk right now. Rear-end him, and you'll both go up in flames like an old Ford Pinto...

Well, clearly some people's perception of the power system is better than others. In Miami Beach, my power was back on in about 8-10 hours, and didn't go out during Katrina. I guess that's 99.9% Some lines are above ground, and some below.
In recent trips to Dominican Republic, the power went out every single day! Yes everyday, sometimes just for a moment, and most of the time multiple times a day.
I'm happy with the service from FPL in maintaining power...I salute the guys that are working at a very dangerous job, while a few people whine, bitch, and make chalk drawings on the street.
Sidenote: Years ago, my neighborhood was debating whether or not to underground the power/utility lines. It was a debate that didn't have much to do with FPL. The residents of both Palm and Hibiscus would have to pay for the infrastructure by way of special assessments on their property tax bill to the city. Afterall, underground utilities add functional value and aesthetic value to property owners.

One thing I think a lot of people might be missing...when power goes out, FPL isn't selling their product. They want the power to be on!!!
Before the conspiracy theorists chime in that FPL likes to repair downed power lines instead of having 98% of their customers not buying their product, I can assure you, they would prefer a steady stream of juice flowing into every house and not to be paying overtime and travel expenses to the extra 6,000 electrical workers that were sent in.

China is by no means wealthy... I disagree. One of the means to calculate wealth is Gross Domestic Product. The highest GDP (2003) of any country in the world (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0874911.html) is the USA at $11.75 Trillion. China is estimated to be #2 at $7.262, almost twice as much as #3 Japan at $3.745. I'd say by at least one means, China is wealthy.

That is one way, another is per capita income. See China has 4 times as many people as the USA so its hardly a fair comparison to go by GDP. So lets look at the Per Capita income USA $39,731.70 per person, Japan $29,391.70 per person, China $5,559.15 per person. To me that isnt a large number, to many in the world it may be. Chinas economy is growing rather fast and as a GDP they could take over us as the top spot but as the income per person shows that doesnt mean wealth for the vast majority of its people.

In recent trips to Dominican Republic, the power went out every single day! Yes everyday, sometimes just for a moment, and most of the time multiple times a day.
Sounds like Doral and West Dade to me... every time it rains, the power goes out long enough at least once to reboot any PC not running from a UPS...

The truth is, South Florida's electrical infrastructure really, REALLY sucks. It works "99%" of the time (but NOT 99.9% or better), and as far as FPL's concerned, that's good enough. In how many other parts of even the US is it considered non-negotiable and mandatory to have UPSes on everything from desktop PCs to VCRs and TiVOs lest the inevitable daily power flashes in the summer (and occasionally, winter) reset them on almost a daily basis?

I can't wait to watch the bloodbath in Tallahassee in a few months when several dozen personally pissed-off lawmakers with their own sharp axes to grind go for FPL's jugular. Most likely, with Jeb firmly on their side (remember... Jeb's from Miami. I think it's safe to say he's going to be taking plenty of heat from his own friends and family members over FPL between now and Christmas. If his kids are staying at their house in Miami, they've probably melted their dad's cell phone with angry messages by now...)

oops (temporarily deleted pending fact-checking after lunch)

Why the big fuss about puting them underground, just do it and get it over with. Hell we did it 7 years ago after a tornado and its been much much better since.

That is one way, another is per capita income. See China has 4 times as many people as the USA so its hardly a fair comparison to go by GDP. So lets look at the Per Capita income USA $39,731.70 per person, Japan $29,391.70 per person, China $5,559.15 per person. To me that isnt a large number, to many in the world it may be. Chinas economy is growing rather fast and as a GDP they could take over us as the top spot but as the income per person shows that doesnt mean wealth for the vast majority of its people.Here we go again...read the sentence that was quoted Rider. it was
China is by no means wealthy... No means? Yes, there is at least one means to calculate that China is wealthy. Period.

Why the big fuss about puting them underground, just do it and get it over with. Hell we did it 7 years ago after a tornado and its been much much better since.You have to ask the individuals that live in the neighborhoods that haven't put them underground.
You and your neighbors assessed the situation after the tornado and did what you thought was a smart decision. It most likely was.
Me and my neighbors took action, ponied up, and put the Palm and Hibiscus lines underground. The islands still lost power, but I didn't hear anyone whining about it. Most understand that a wicked storm came through and wrought havok, and are appreciative for the things that they have.
My guess is that the people in the neighborhoods that haven't taken this initiative are sitting on their arses complaining, when they would be better served by doing something about their situation.
Bottom line.

If we look at China in terms of health standards I would rank them among developing countries. The demand for health care is simply too large for the amount of funding (even though the funding is massive). There is one more way to look at its wealth.

You have to ask the individuals that live in the neighborhoods that haven't put them underground.
You and your neighbors assessed the situation after the tornado and did what you thought was a smart decision. It most likely was.
Me and my neighbors took action, ponied up, and put the Palm and Hibiscus lines underground. The islands still lost power, but I didn't hear anyone whining about it. Most understand that a wicked storm came through and wrought havok, and are appreciative for the things that they have.
My guess is that the people in the neighborhoods that haven't taken this initiative are sitting on their arses complaining, when they would be better served by doing something about their situation.
Bottom line.

Agreed, we did the right thing. I dont understand why people want to pay for the same thing over and over and then not have the product as it is getting fixed.

So far my parents have been without power for 16 days this year and still don't have power yet after Wilma.

This just in....
I posted earlier that I stayed in Kendall through the hurricane. That neighborhood, Sunset Harbor (Kendall not the Sobe one) has underground utilities. It was developed around 1992 and has underground utilities. Power went out on Monday at about 8am, and didn't return for about 3 days.

My apt on Sobe has a long line of cables running on poles through the alley and the power was restored in about 8 hours.

There just might be an answer to the question about why power isn't restored quickly other than "underground power lines".
I think the answer is, density. Customers per line. Cost vs Benefit. If you fix the grid my apartment is on, you get 2,000 paying customers paying for electricity immediately. If you fix one of lines that bring juice into the Sunset Harbor development, you bring on 100 customers. If you were a prudent business man, what would you choose?

For those that hate leaders, you probably can't wait to hear the the Mayor of Miami Beach does not have power as of today. Miami Beach has 96% of the power restored, but North Bay Road has places that are not being served. I think that answer is density, there are only about 50 homes on North Bay Road on that line (even though they are $5Million plus homes), If you were a prudent business...wait, I already said that.

My guess is that the people in the neighborhoods that haven't taken this initiative are sitting on their arses complaining, when they would be better served by doing something about their situation.
Like doing their best to help light a political firestorm that will ensure that Wilma is recognized as the straw that broke the camel's back and and gets our elected officials to do whatever is necessary to make it happen on a large scale? :cheer:

One thing is true... simply burying lines isn't enough. The entire grid needs to be fortified enough to ensure that most customers will emerge from a cat-1 with their power INTACT and ON. That means fortifying substations, and burying enough lines to be able to survive the loss of others while maintaining power to the majority of customers in the area hit.

The Miami Herald might not be able to burst a hypothetical bubble... but I guarantee that year after year of multi-week power losses will eventually have an effect on property values and company decisions to locate offices here unless the state, county, and cities get serious about fortifying the power system here.

http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/051103/story7.shtml

Limited damage reported at South Florida construction sites

By Marilyn Bowden
South Florida developers report limited damage to construction sites in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma.
"Our projects suffered moderate damage such as some roof damage in Boyton Beach," said John Landrum, COO of The Related Group, which has about 10,000 condo units in development across Florida. "There was also some landscape damage in some projects as well as limited water damage."
Luis Rabell of LPR Builders said his townhouse project in West Dade, Netherlands at Islands at Doral, escaped with "very limited damage. The landscaping was damaged and some concrete tiles have blown away."
Sergio Pino, president of Century Builders, which has several large-scale residential communities in development in the Doral area, estimated that half the landscaping was destroyed but "basically we had no losses."
Wilma's aftermath, though, has been costly.
"We lost a whole week," Mr. Pino said. "One of the issues we have is that we've got 50-60 homes we can't close on because FPL has to come in and install meters. They are busy restoring power to residents in existing homes, and rightly so. But it will cause a two- to four-week delay in closings on those homes."
In Marathon, Franco D'Ascanio, president of D'Asign Source, which builds custom residences in the $1.5 million to $5 million range, said flooding was a bigger problem than high winds in the Keys though there was some minor damage to docks, fencing and landscaping.
"All our homes are designed to withstand 150-mile-per-hour winds, and most are built for 170 miles per hour," he said.
Two new luxury condo-hotels in Sunny Isles Beach - Trump Palace and Acqualina - did well and are trying to get ready for closing.
Trump Palace co-developer Gil Dezer said the only impact to that project was loss of landscaping.
Alan Matus, president of William Island Ocean Club, said Acqualina weathered the storm well but the ensuing gas shortages that kept most employees away from work made closing more difficult.
"We are undergoing fire marshal inspections and are very close to being ready to operate," he said three days after Wilma struck, "but we have no staff."
With forecasters predicting an upsurge in hurricane activity that could last for two decades, developers say this season may be a sign of things to come.
Mr. Pino says he's already decided to offer a generator as an option with every new home he sells.
Mr. Rabell called Wilma "a wake-up call for developers. Miami-Dade came out of this one fairly decently, but it all depends on the storm."
"It's a major expense for our company every time there's a hurricane warning to go to each job site, secure trees, remove roof tiles not installed yet and tie down lumber," Mr. D'Ascanio said, "but we have to be cautious."

Like doing their best to help light a political firestorm that will ensure that Wilma is recognized as the straw that broke the camel's back and and gets our elected officials to do whatever is necessary to make it happen on a large scale? :cheer:No...not like that. That "political firestorm" doesn't seem to have produced a spark. In about 3 weeks people will be out boating and enjoying the perfect weather and will have forgotten the 3 days without electric.
My sugguestion would be to get off the derrier, organize your neigbors through a neighborhood association or a meeting of the minds at least You seem like a smart enough guy with some great ideas, get you neighbors activated. It worked where I lived.

Go get em Miami :runaway:

Maybe they will have forgotten the three days without electric but remember the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th... 17th days without electricity. Maybe it is just my parents house that has it that bad. They have well water which means no water without electricity. Im so glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. My old neighborhood is full of people with NIMBY-like attitudes. They opposed the publicly funded installation of a storm drainage system because it would mess up those last few feets of grass on their acre lots even though my neighborhood was prone to flooding. The one thing that might convince them to have the underground lines is that the above ground ones are eye-sores.

Sounds like Doral and West Dade to me... every time it rains, the power goes out long enough at least once to reboot any PC not running from a UPS...


tell me about it, a couple days ago, after having power restored, the electricity went on and off for like a second, like ten times in a row, which led to a messed up monitor, and speakers, which still dont work.. :bash:

I thought i'd never see the day when we got back on topic:)

Roark -- one problem with rallying the neighbors -- burying the neighborhood's line is a good place to start, but to really make a meaningful difference to availability and uptime, the line needs to be hardened all the way back to the substation. Then the substation itself needs to be storm-hardened -- and preferably equipped with a gas-fired generator large enough to service the substation's needs when the transmission lines go down(*). Yes, every little bit helps... but to really see downtime decrease from days to literally hours (or, better yet, no downtime at all, or at least diminished to the point where it's not a given that the power will go out during a little cat-1 hurricane), the distribution system needs to be hardened well beyond any individual neighborhood. And beyond that, FPL needs to have hardened bunkers in each county where they can literally have workers, equipment, and parts staged and ready to hit the road "right from ground zero" the moment the winds drop below 39mph. Right now, they have their trucks and workers staged a few hundred miles away, so there's an up-front delay of several hours just getting them to the damage once the storm is over.

Actually, one of my co-workers pointed out another reason why FPL is so anti-burying. As a matter of policy, they don't want to create expectations of robust, reliable service (or even allow such expectations to form in the first place). The more lines that get buried, and the more points that get hardened, the more upset people are going to be when things fail -- especially if they fail because FPL cut corners somewhere and someone (say, a disgruntled employee with a friend working for the Miami Herald) reveals that a weak link wasn't up to their official standards and was literally FPL's fault, in the official regulated-utility sense of the word "fault". Right now, everybody expects power to go down during hurricanes, and FPL can take two weeks or more to fix the damage and claim they're doing as well as they always do. They absolutely, positively do not want the Florida PSC to start including availability metrics with punitive fines and damages for downtime caused by failure to meet some stiff, objective, and verifiable standard.

In the near future, FPL is going to strike back hard, telling everyone that burying lines and hardening infrastructure isn't "cost effective". The proper response isn't to try and argue that it's cheaper in the long run (in pure dollars and cents, it probably isn't), but rather that cost efficiency is the wrong metric and shouldn't even be a factor. What REALLY matters are availability and uptime.

The message that needs to be spread is simple: robust 99.9% uptime isn't cheap... but neither are widespread power outages when you factor in the intangible opportunity costs of shortages, frustration, discomfort and the more tangible costs like lost business, diminished tourism, spoiled food, and post-storm unemployment for hourly workers who literally don't get paid if their workplace is closed for a week or two. FPL needs to be held to a higher standard of availability, with fines and penalties for service interruptions longer than 24 hours. They need to be given the financial resources to harden their infrastructure (read: bonds backed by the state and municipalities, serviced by higher monthly fees for customers), then be made accountable to upholding those high standards by harsh, punitive fines for failure to meet them when it happens because they cut corners somewhere they shouldn't.

-----------------

(*)The generator-at-the-substation idea probably isn't practical for availability to all customers... but would be feasible if FPL were to expand the "on demand" hardware's abilities and deploy it to every single customer as an integral part of a new digital meter box, so they could selectively enable and disable power delivery to individual customers after a storm when the generators are in use, giving first priority to customers who pay more for premium service, then servicing the second-tier customers who might pay extra for "better" service that disables their a/c and limits their water heater to an hour or two per day, finally granting intermittent power to the low-income (or stingy) customers who only care about bottom-dollar monthly costs and would rather spend a week in the dark than pay an additional $25 or $35/month availability premium for "better" and "premium" service level (with $750 and $1000 activation charges for instant upgrades after a storm for people who wait until the power is actually out to consider upgrading, plus quadruple kWh charges for the duration of the outage that motivated them to sign up... the message being that customers CAN wait until they really need the service instead of paying more every month, but they'll pay dearly if they do). They could possibly include an alternate middle service tier for people with generators that are big enough to run everything BUT the central a/c and water heater that would selectively deliver power to the breaker box ONLY when the transfer switch were in "generator" mode, with a second FPL box acting as a virtual second generator dedicated to powering the a/c and water tank.

Roark -- one problem with rallying the neighbors -- burying the neighborhood's line is a good place to start....
Actually, one of my co-workers pointed out another reason why FPL is so anti-burying.Your co-worker is probably a good guy. But the assumption is definitely flawed. "Anti-burying"...is there one shred of evidence to support your claim that FPL is "anti-burying"????

FPL is anti-burying????? Where the hell did you get that???? Is Rider teaching you how to pull jibberish out of thin air???

Why is it so hard to understand that FPL wants to sell electricity?

Again... for the thick headed knuckleheads who aren't reading the posts of people that are trying to help them....

Undergrounding utility lines is not FPL's business. It is a municipal undertaking. Rally your neighbors..like my neighbors have done. If you aren't going to take action...quit whining like a school girl!!!!

Jeez...I'm really trying to help.
Providing some solutions to problems that have been solved before. Not sure why people fight the facts...but that's the way it goes I guess.

Sometimes, I wonder why I waste my breath.

I'm glad everyone is ok. Power came back in my area last wednesday, actually 2 blocks away they had power restored 2 days after WIlma. That same day i wnet downtown and the destruction was considerable.

About FPL Suposedly not making money when power is out, it turns out they got that money back from the state in 2004 in a surcharge to all customers for "lost revenue". I'm not sure if it covers this years storms, though I wouldn't hold my breath over the state not reimbersing them again.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13087041.htm

FPL could charge for lost power

Regulators allowed customers to be charged for revenue losses during power outages in 2004. Will it happen again with Wilma?

BY JACK DOLAN AND SCOTT HIAASEN

jdolan@herald.com


Thousands of Florida Power & Light customers who have suffered dark nights and sweltering days since Hurricane Wilma might be in store for some extra pain, consumer advocates warn: There's a chance they'll end up paying for the power they're not using.

It happened just that way, quietly, after the 2004 hurricane season.

With little fanfare, FPL and the state Public Service Commission included $34 million of ''lost revenue'' -- the money customers didn't pay while sitting in the dark after three storms raked South Florida last year -- on the list of expenses to be recovered through a hurricane surcharge.

The governor-appointed PSC approved the unprecedented measure over the loud objections of consumer groups. The surcharge of $1.68 per month first appeared on all FPL customers' bills in February. It will continue through February 2008 and is expected to raise at least $441 million in total.

Much of that money will pay for broken utility poles, damaged transformers and destroyed lines. But recovering the so-called lost revenue is a new twist.

''They're charging people for electricity they never got, that's what it comes down to,'' said Charles Beck, an attorney for the state Office of Public Counsel, a consumer group that opposed counting lost revenue as a hurricane expense.

The mayor of Broward County, where more than 200,000 FPL customers still lacked power Friday afternoon, was aghast to learn that last year's surcharge covered FPL's lost revenue.

''I should pick my jaw up off the floor,'' Kristin Jacobs said. ``That's unbelievable. That's absolutely not what the public expected. If they're not delivering the service, we should not have to pay for it.''

State Rep. Marcelo Llorente of Miami-Dade also was surprised.

''That's the first time I'm made aware of that,'' said Llorente, a member of the legislature's Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight, which vets the Governor's nominees to the commission.

FPL spokesman Bill Swank said the idea to include lost revenue in the surcharge came from the PSC staff, not FPL executives.

''We did not ask for that,'' Swank said. ``We didn't turn it down, but we did not ask for it.''

FPL originally wanted an accounting method where only actual costs from the storms could be included in the surcharge, Swank said. But the PSC and its staff chose to apply an ''incremental'' system, in which any costs beyond what normally would be expected by the company and regulators could be included.

''Part of that incremental expense was recovery of money you would have earned,'' Swank said. He noted that there were other costs, such as hiring outside vendors to do the regular work of FPL staff who worked on the recovery effort, that were not included in the surcharge.

The rate hike is intended to shore up FPL's storm reserve fund. the fund has been the company's main safety net since Hurricane Andrew, when the utility's insurance company drastically reduced its coverage.

FPL's insurance policy has never covered lost revenues, according to PSC testimony.

The problem with allowing FPL to recover lost revenue, said state Public Counsel Harold McLean, is that it eliminates risk for the profit-making, privately owned company. While FPL is highly regulated -- it can't raise rates without the approval of the PSC -- it also has no competition in South Florida.

FPL netted $311 million in the third quarter of this year, up 13 percent from the same period last year, according to a company news release on Friday. Ironically, the company cited weather as the key to its growth. The unseasonably hot weather more than made up for losses from the hurricanes, the release said.

Three of the four commissioners voted with chairman Braulio Baez in favor of the counting lost revenue as a storm cost, according to the transcript from their July 19 meeting on the subject.

Baez, who is stepping down from the commission at the end of the year, said he couldn't argue with the fact that the commission allowed FPL to recover $34 million it lost because people couldn't use its electricity.

''If revenues were not being received on base rates, they had to be offset by the storm fund,'' he said.

The lone dissenter, Commissioner J. Terry Deason, noted: ''We are shifting the risks away from the company, in this case Florida Power & Light, and putting it on the rate payer.'' Deason noted that there were valid arguments for ensuring that utility companies can respond rapidly during blackouts, but ultimately voted against restoring FPL's lost revenue.

Three other Florida utility companies affected by the 2004 hurricanes did not include lost revenue in their lists of hurricane expenses, PSC records show.

Among the other items included on the list of FPL storm expenses from 2004 were $76 million in employees' salaries -- including nearly $2 million in bonuses -- and $3 million for the use of company-owned vehicles. FPL officials wanted to include $1.7 million spent on advertising and public relations, records show, but the PSC approved only $151,000.

FPL officials said they actually lost $38.2 million in revenue from last summer's hurricanes.

But the company did make $10 million more in revenue in August 2004 than in August 2003 -- an increase partly attributed to a higher number of customers, according to PSC testimony.

Public Counsel Harold McLean, whose office acts as a consumer watchdog on behalf of the state's utility customers, said ''I guarantee'' that FPL soon will ask for a surcharge to recover the revenue it is losing due to the Hurricane Wilma, and ''I guarantee'' that his office will oppose it.

FPL officials won't discuss their plans.

''We're nowhere even near thinking about what our request from Wilma is going to be,'' said FPL's Swank. ``We aren't even looking at dollars yet, we're looking at getting people's service back. Period.''

Your co-worker is probably a good guy. But the assumption is definitely flawed. "Anti-burying"...is there one shred of evidence to support your claim that FPL is "anti-burying"????

FPL is anti-burying????? Where the hell did you get that???? Is Rider teaching you how to pull jibberish out of thin air???

Why is it so hard to understand that FPL wants to sell electricity?

Again... for the thick headed knuckleheads who aren't reading the posts of people that are trying to help them....

Undergrounding utility lines is not FPL's business. It is a municipal undertaking. Rally your neighbors..like my neighbors have done. If you aren't going to take action...quit whining like a school girl!!!!

Jeez...I'm really trying to help.
Providing some solutions to problems that have been solved before. Not sure why people fight the facts...but that's the way it goes I guess.

Sometimes, I wonder why I waste my breath.

My goodness. You know I once heard a guy say he wasnt a hater, but then he kept on making these terrible rants and insulting people. He totally had a view that he was always right and everyone, everyone else was always wrong. Now it would be normal to think that this person is just a childish egotistic ass. :) Dont be a hater Roark :D

About FPL Suposedly not making money when power is out, it turns out they got that money back from the state in 2004 in a surcharge to all customers for "lost revenue". I'm not sure if it covers this years storms, though I wouldn't hold my breath over the state not reimbersing them again.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13087041.htm

Dont see any incentive to change their ways there.

FPL is anti-burying?????
Yes, FPL is anti-burying.
http://www.fpl.com/faqs/contents/underground.shtml

They claim they aren't, but read between the lines of their own FAQ, and it quickly becomes obvious that they have zero enthusiasm for moving lines underground, and have no qualms about throwing as many impediments at those who want to have lines buried as they possibly can. Their laundry list of conditions and requirements strongly suggests that they intend to use undergrounding as an excuse to get everything they've ever wanted and make all their dreams come true, regardless of how much it costs. Why not? FPL can bloat the costs and pass along 100% of the costs, reducing their own future operating expenses and pocketing the profits as a bonus. In FPL's dream world, most municipalities will decide to abandon burial... and the rest will solve all of FPL's pre-existing difficulties as part of the conversion.

Case in point: easements. As a matter of policy, FPL doesn't like to locate new buried lines within existing backyard easements (unless, of course, the local municipality beats them over the head and forces them to do it). Why? It's more convenient for them if they're in the front yard... and because it lets them pump up the conversion cost estimate by including the acquisition cost of hundreds of square feet of expensive residential land in front of each house by eminent domain to make the cost look really scary and outrageous. This is going to be a MAJOR fighting point between municipalities and FPL. Hopefully, our elected officials will have the balls to hire their own consultants to identify areas where FPL could live with narrower easements, and tell FPL to live with it or else.

FPL also loves to scare people by claiming that conversion to underground might trigger code requirements forcing the expensive overhaul of an old home's electrical system to comply with current codes. That might be true in the abstract... but really, it's another red herring. Especially with the pro-burial sentiment that's going to be pervasive in Tallahassee this winter. If the State (or municipalities) need to grandfather in old homes by granting an exception for the specific act of converting to underground lines to eliminate it as a possible objection, it WILL be done once someone figures out which codes need to be amended and who has the authority to do it. I'm sure FPL will lobby hard against granting such an exception and send an army of lobbyists out to convince people that Florida's cities will go up in flames if an exception is made... but once again, I don't think FPL is going to have many friends in Tallahassee, counties, and municipalities come this winter.

Every single FPL document loves to emphasize that underground lines are harder to repair and can be damaged by flooding... but fails to acknowledge that they're less vulnerable to damage in the first place. The last time I checked, Doral is in no real danger of being inundated with saltwater, nor are Hialeah, Miami Lakes, Kendall, nor most of urban Dade County. Flooding and saltwater damage are red herrings that they keep waving around in the hope that nobody will question their actutal relevance to neighborhoods that aren't located on canals or barrier islands.

FPL also loves to point out that transformers are still aboveground and vulnerable to damage. Frankly, that's not an argument against burying lines... it's an argument for fortifying the transformer enclosures and building them from reinforced concrete instead of metal so they won't be vulnerable to damage by anything less than a direct hit by cat-4 or greater. They also like to gleefully point out that they want a 20x20 foot easement in front yards for the transformer enclosures, knowing that in many urban areas, there isn't that much space available in the first place. Guess what? Once cities start going for FPL's jugular, I suspect they'll quickly find a way to build tall concrete enclosures with MUCH smaller footprints AND (at the cities' insistence) find ways to make them look nice.

As for the burial itself... FPL loudly declares that it intends to use directional boring... then quietly admits that whomever is actually paying for the burial will probably prefer to have a cheap trench dug instead.

Roark is right about the cities and counties needing to take the initiative. In a way, it's good that Wilma's power outages were so bad, because it means that our elected officials are going to run FPL through the meat grinder and scrutinize every one of their estimates and demands... and when they suspect FPL is just being bitchy, spoiled, and threatening to take its ball and go home... will pull out the BIG guns and make it clear to FPL that the lines WILL be buried in existing easements wherever it is technically feasible REGARDLESS of how badly they might want easements to be wider and/or in front yards... and that if FPL won't play ball, they can, and will, be replaced by someone more cooperative.

The fact is, South Florida is likely to be getting hit by cat-1 and cat-2 hurricanes on a yearly basis for the next decade or more. Spending 1-4 weeks per year without power, year after year, is not an acceptable option. Our power infrastructure must be fortified enough to withstand the storms we're getting hit by every single year -- regardless of how much it costs. Losing power should be a rare and unusual event, happening due to extraordinary circumstances... not something that happens for weeks and weeks, year after year. If nothing is done, this will have long-term negative effects upon South Florida's economy. What sane company is going to locate anything of strategic importance in an area that's practically guaranteed to be without electricity -- and generally dysfunctional overall -- for a week or more every year?

By the way, my power was finally restored late this afternoon.

http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/05/73/08/image_1908735.jpg
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/storm/content/local_news/epaper/2005/11/07/s1b_crane_1107.html

whoa that crane was destroyed,i forgot to tell you guys that one of the cranes at midtown miami fell,right on top of the building--i think its still there

Interesting Herald article:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13108535.htm

'04 hurricane a windfall for profitable FPL

BY FRED GRIMM

fgrimm@herald.com


I was so much happier in the dark, when I was still in the dark about the PSC.

But reporters Jack Dolan and Scott Hiaasen, acting out of some misguided notion of citizens' need to know, bludgeoned Herald readers with information that we didn't want to know.

Not now. Not while sitting at home in the perpetual twilight of a single lamp, skin glistening with sweat, two weeks of dirty laundry piled on the floor, amid a tangled snake pit of heavy-duty extension cords.


Insensitive to the effects their reporting might have on the fragile psyches of the unelectrified, Dolan and Hiaasen destroyed the one bit of solace that comes with a two-week (and counting) blackout. As long as electric meters registered zero usage, we reasoned in our un-air-conditioned hot boxes, FPL would be losing revenue. The damned utility would be forced to share the post-Wilma pain.

You could almost hear the reporters clearing their throats before they delivered the bitter truth: Sorry, chumps, but you'll be paying anyway. The Florida Public Service Commission likes to make sure that the utility gets paid even for the electricity they didn't provide, for power they never had to generate.

The destruction of life's other great myths -- the existence of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- weren't so shocking.

BIG SURCHARGE

In July, the PSC quietly added another $33,814,297 to FPL's hurricane surcharge to cover sales revenue lost during the 2004 hurricane blackout. The PSC reasoned that FPL deserved reimbursement for ''uncollectible or bad-debt expense,'' as if its luckless customers were so many low-rent deadbeats, using the excuse of power loss after last year's hurricanes to shirk their financial obligations.

David Smitherman of Miami tried to understand the PSC's rationale. ''Based on that logic, I should be getting bills soon from Publix, Amoco, Wal-Mart, Aventura 24 theaters and Taco Bell as they too would have most likely been establishments where I would have spent money had Hurricane Wilma not been present,'' he e-mailed.

Dolan and Hiaasen then delivered a quote so cruel that it might have sent me into a dog-kicking rage, except my dog is very fast and my house is very dark. Instead I tripped over an extension cord. Thankfully, I landed in a prodigious pile of dirty laundry.

FPL spokesman Bill Swank said the notion of charging for lost revenue originated with the PSC. Not FPL. ``We did not ask for that. We didn't turn it down, but we did not ask for it.''

Apparently the staff of the PSC, appointed by the governor to (supposedly) keep utilities from abusing their captive rate payers, dreamed up the lost- revenue surcharge and forced it on the company. It was Christmas in July for FPL. Maybe, for powerful monopolies, there really is a Santa.

FAT PROFITS

One consideration the PSC adamantly rejected as it totaled up some $441 million in various 2004 hurricane costs to tack onto FPL customers' bills: Those reimbursements won't be weighed against FPL's fat profits. The theme running through the PSC's July transcripts is a determination ''to make the company whole.'' Very, very whole.

FPL, as opposed to most residents and companies in the state, functions in an environment shorn of the financial risks associated with hurricanes. Damaged equipment, no problem. Add it to the hurricane surcharge. Soaring overtime costs during storm recovery. No problem. Add it to the surcharge.

Neglect tree trimming. Fail to inspect for rotting power poles. No problem. Just add the resulting storm damage to the surcharge.

And now this. Customers, sitting for days in dark, sweaty tedium, don't pay for electricity they don't receive. No problem, reported The Herald, ruining my own sweaty and tedious day. The PSC says their buddies at FPL can bill us suckers anyway.

Very interesting article!
The headline "'04 hurricane a windfall for profitable FPL" is a bit misleading though. It might as well read '04 hurricane a windfall for profitable FPL
Just to check out the extent of the "windfall", I checked the Dow Jones Market watch site. An independent stock traker...The Herald didn't mention what the FPL 2004 profit was or what 2003 was...but we can find out easily enough FPL Income Statement 2001 - 2004 (http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials.asp?symb=FPL&sid=1863&siteid=bigcharts&report=1&freq=1)
As it turns out, the "windfall" 2004 year Net Income was $887M and the year before, 2003 was $890M. Not at all what the Herald article led me to believe. Thank goodness that we don't believe everything we read.

...that was a scary day yesterday.... anyways it seems like wilma destroyed alot than any other storm i've everr seen(except andrew). BRICKELL avenue was destroyed and every street is unrecognizable.......

I finally got these pictures scanned from the little disposable camera I had on me right after the storm. It looks like Roark and Rider_of_Rohan had posted pictures that are no longer showing, I would be interested in seeing them.

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9115/scan0001ep.jpg


There were pretty good sized fish swimming along Brickell Ave! One guy had a kayak out.
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1292/scan0002rg.jpg

South side of the J Dub was slapped hard.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/5391/scan0003uk.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/3318/scan0004ss.jpg


There was a TON of glass on the ground and I'm walkin' around in flipflops!
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/5449/scan0005d.jpg


The FS got it's share of damage, a few hotel rooms and condos were gutted. The maintenance worked throughout the storm boarding up windows. It took about 3 months to replace all of the windows.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9678/scan0006sf.jpg


You can see how bad the back of the Greenburg-Taurig building is here. A news copter was flying close to it and it was causing papers to fly out of the building, it looked like a NYC ticker tape parade after WWII. This shot does not show how bed ES was hit, there were desks and beds hanging out of windows, on top of everything else the sprinkler system was busted during the storm and a couple of floors got an extra drenching. It took two years for them to replace all of the windows.
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1286/scan0007c.jpg


Oh Yeah.
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1889/scan0008zu.jpg


Back in Aventura.
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4364/scan0009bk.jpg

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9536/scan0010ct.jpg

Wow....I hope we dont get one of those this year!

Wow, great pics!

Makes you wonder if all glass architecture is right for Miami anyway?
I mean, constant sun and risk of hurricanes... I dunno. Perhaps more stone is better suited?

Wow....I hope we dont get one of those this year!

So do I. The seas are very warm this year and a very active season has been predicted.

Wow, great pics!

Makes you wonder if all glass architecture is right for Miami anyway?
I mean, constant sun and risk of hurricanes... I dunno. Perhaps more stone is better suited?

I think more should be built like 1450 Brickell.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2452/3710680089_33dfc1361c_b.jpg

Brickell office tower's windows exceed Florida building codes
A developer has shelled out millions to strengthen the glass walls of his Brickell Avenue office project.

The high-rise claims to be the nation's most wind resistant building. PATRICK FARRELL / MIAMI HERALD
Photo BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com
After Hurricane Wilma raked Miami four years ago, developer Alan Ojeda picked his way down Brickell Avenue to survey his new apartment project, One Broadway.

Glass from shattered skyscrapers was everywhere, covering streets and One Broadway's roof and balconies. His high-rise -- built to the latest codes with laminated windows designed to endure ''small missiles'' like roof gravel -- had escaped unscathed.

Still, the surrounding damage troubled Ojeda. Crews spent days shoveling fist-sized shards off the 36-story roof -- bigger junk whirling higher than South Florida's vaunted hurricane coded addresses for high-rises.

Now, with Wilma's lesson in mind, Ojeda is putting the finishing touches on another new building, 1450 Brickell. His company bills it as the most wind-resistant glass-sided office tower in the nation. In a marketing release, its exterior wall contractor claims it withstood pressure tests in the lab equating to a 327-mph gust.

''The first thing we decided was we needed to protect the building,'' said Ojeda, chief executive of Miami-based Rilea Group. ``Obviously, the hurricane proved what the code says is not enough.''

In what building experts said appears to be a first in Florida for a commercial tower, the entire 35-story facade is being constructed with ''large missile'' impact glass, an upgrade adding millions to the $250 million project. Required for homes but only on the first 30 feet of taller buildings, the glass can withstand strikes from a nine-pound 2-by-4 stud.

There are some questions about the stunning 327-mph wind calculation. The director of the testing lab, A.A. ''Sak'' Sakhnovsky, whose Construction Research Laboratory in Miami pioneered testing building designs against the elements, acknowledged that ``it's probably a bit of a stretch.''

But Sakhnovsky also said the building, expected to open early next year, raises the bar on wind resistance.

''It was designed for extremely big loads, probably higher loads than we have ever tested,'' he said.

Despite questions from many engineers and building officials after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma blew out thousands of building windows from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, window codes haven't changed much since 2005. ''Small missile'' windows -- tested by firing pea-sized ball bearings at panes -- remain the high-rise standard.

''If they are actually using glass that would pass the large-missile test, that's not something I have seen,'' said Tim Reinhold, vice president of engineering for the insurance-industry-supported Institute for Business and Home Safety in Tampa. ``To me, that sounds like a very positive step.''

Rick Dixon, executive director of the Florida Building Commission, which revises statewide building codes, said that level of protection typically applies only to facilities considered critical such as hospitals.

To a large degree, Wilma did the worst damage to towers erected before a strengthed 2000 code mandating windows with layers of plastic laminate. Buildings with those, including One Broadway, actually weathered Wilma well.

TOO RISKY

But Wilma was a 100-mph storm, not a major hurricane, and Ojeda decided that what worked in an apartment -- built with balconies and concrete block -- was too risky for an all-glass, high-end office high-rise.

''You have to look at it in a different way. You have to look at it as a body of glass,'' he said. ``Small missile is good. But what is better?''

Awesome pics.

A peninsula jutting into the subtropic Atlantic Ocean is sometimes going to slammed headfirst into the ground by a hurricane. There's just no way around that and someday it'll be far worse than anything any of us have ever experienced.

But it'll survive it.

Awesome pics.

A peninsula jutting into the subtropic Atlantic Ocean is sometimes going to slammed headfirst into the ground by a hurricane. There's just no way around that and someday it'll be far worse than anything any of us have ever experienced.

But it'll survive it.

Speaking of which, is it really impossible to stop hurricanes?
Let's say one of the hit Manhattan (yeah I know, it's not gonna happen, but bear with me), shouldn't the density of skyscrapers halt it?
I mean, it works fine on open spaces, but being among tall steady scrapers, it seems logical that it's strenght would diminish.

It's a low probability for a very strong hurricane to hit NYC but it is possible. In the grand scheme a cluster of buildings will start to slow a storm, but at ground zero right when the storm hits the buildings may cause wind speeds to increase. Vortexes can be created between buildings and tornadoes can form. Some say that there was a tornado in Brickell during Wilma. I think a big hurricane could cause a whole lot of damage to Manhattan, but overall I don't think it would end up ranking in the top ten disasters from the past ten years. Windows will blow out everywhere but the structure of the buildings will be okay, and not having any buildings getting flattened will be a big advantage.

Speaking of which, is it really impossible to stop hurricanes?
Let's say one of the hit Manhattan (yeah I know, it's not gonna happen, but bear with me), shouldn't the density of skyscrapers halt it?
I mean, it works fine on open spaces, but being among tall steady scrapers, it seems logical that it's strenght would diminish.

High mountain ranges do tear up hurricanes, but Manhattan is not quite tall enough and dense enough or even big enough.

I'd have to say that buildings probably have zero effect on lessening the intensity of a hurricane. Being over dry land for an extended period is what saps them of their strength, aside from some storms that simply fall apart at sea.

Skyscrapers affecting hurricanes??!! HAAA. I know you guys love skyscrapers, but you're crazy to believe that. The heart of a hurricane is about 10,000 feet up (center of circulation). A skyscraper or even collection of them are too small to have any real affect. Tall mountains, dry air, strong upper air currents and seminoles are hurricane enemies. :cheers:

I don't think the notion that skyscrapers can affect the impact/intensity of a hurricane is such a farfetched idea. I read recently that scientists discovered a new type of cloud formed by airplanes flying during particular weather conditions and that they can produce rain or snow. Also, if you're at all familiar with the chaos theory or the butterfly effect (i.e. that the flutter of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world can cause a catastrophic typhoon somewhere else in the world), science has demonstrated that little things can have a big impact.

I'm just sayin'...

Speaking of which, is it really impossible to stop hurricanes?
Let's say one of the hit Manhattan (yeah I know, it's not gonna happen, but bear with me), shouldn't the density of skyscrapers halt it?
I mean, it works fine on open spaces, but being among tall steady scrapers, it seems logical that it's strenght would diminish.
Even if it was possible to stop hurricanes, why would we want to? This is the question we should be asking because hurricanes also bring good for some areas such as relieving droughts, ending the threat of wildfires, and refilling lakes and resevoirs. Hurricanes is a natural cycle of life and I think we should leave mother nature the way it works because we are already screwing up the environment enough so don't blame hurricanes but we are to blame.

Skyscrapers affecting hurricanes??!! HAAA. I know you guys love skyscrapers, but you're crazy to believe that. The heart of a hurricane is about 10,000 feet up (center of circulation). A skyscraper or even collection of them are too small to have any real affect. Tall mountains, dry air, strong upper air currents and seminoles are hurricane enemies. :cheers:

The Seminoles have put up many good fights against Hurricanes but some of their most noble efforts have wound up just wide right of victory. :cheers:

If anything, "flooding" will be the worst a hurricane can bring to South Florida. I mean when it rains for a long period of time here, it floods like crazy....can you imagine a huge hurricane....South Beach will be a swimming pool.

Even if it was possible to stop hurricanes, why would we want to? This is the question we should be asking because hurricanes also bring good for some areas such as relieving droughts, ending the threat of wildfires, and refilling lakes and resevoirs. Hurricanes is a natural cycle of life and I think we should leave mother nature the way it works because we are already screwing up the environment enough so don't blame hurricanes but we are to blame.
Thank you.