Quatraine III
Katraina
August 25th 2005
People may not remember the damage a hurricane can cause, therefore, I decided to post my web pages of the hurricane. I'm also posting them because Broward County cares so much about the tree canopy, that most communities don't trim their trees, causing them to be top heavy. QIII does trim trees, but the laws are so strict, that tree trimmers barely do anything.
08/25/05, Hurricane Katrina hits South Florida and knocks out power to Plantation.
Look at this olive tree that smashed into a house. The same thing happened to another house the previous year when Charlie hit. The trees fall over because they are top heavy.
The city is very quick to cut trees that have fallen over, the tree above was cut the next day on Friday. They probably do this because they don't want people seeing downed trees.
The above picture is more proof of what happens every time a storm comes thru. The trees drop branches making a mess everywhere.
The Publix shopping center had no power and neither did the homes about a mile down the road. This was really frustrating, because the Winn Dixie shopping center across the street had power, homes a mile down the road had power, yet the homes in Quatraine3 did not. Do you know why the homes in Quatraine3 didn't have power from Thursday 08/25/05 at 5pm to Sunday 08/28/05 at 01:30pm (3 days)? Because of a tree branch that fell into the power lines. In picture 1 you can see the tree branch on the ground. In picture 2, you can see the box on the power poll. Was there any damage to the power lines? No. It seems the tree branch simply caused the circuit breaker to trip in the box shown in the picture. In picture 4 you can see where the branch came off the tree, it's just to the left of the power poll in the middle of the picture. In picture 5, you can see the FPL truck parked. The guy didn't even touch the box. He simply looked up, called back to his office, and magically the power came back on. But everyone had to wait 3 days for this to happen because FPL was helping other people. In picture 6 you can see how the tree branches for a "U" around the power lines. This is against the cities' own code, this is never supposed to happen.
So the city, in the quest to have a tree canopy, is causing more problems. Hundreds of people, and a Publix shopping center went without power for 3 days, just because a tree branch fell into power lines. Even with a generator, life is still hell without power. Most generators can run a fridge, a small TV, and a fan. But unless you buy a 3k home generator system wired into the fuse box, they don't run the AC. Living in a home with no AC is hell. Many people in the neighborhood left, to go stay with others. The inside temperature of the house rises to 87 degrees, sweating all day is the norm. Writing about it can't describe what it feels like.
The city needs to trim all the trees under the power lines and stop the "U" thing where the power lines go thru the branches. Other cities don't have trees around their power lines, they don't let this happen.
The City of Plantation has a cartoonish pamphlet they give out to people, the main characters are Marge and Fred. On one of the pages, they say that trees under power lines are a problem, yes they are and the City of Plantation has many of them. Marge and Fred need to go look at all the trees near power lines and do something about it so the residents don't lose power for 3 days.
End of Report. Thanks for reading.