ISLAMORADA: Residents who returned to the Florida Keys archipelago on Tuesday found Hurricane Irma had shredded mobile homes like soda cans and coated businesses with seaweed, while the death toll rose for the second major hurricane to hit the United States this year.
Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record before it arrived in the United States, killed 43 people in its rampage through the Caribbean and at least 12 in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. On Islamorada Key, one of just three islands where authorities allowed people to return on Tuesday, the aluminum walls of trailer homes had been ripped open by the storm, exposing insulation, bedrooms and kitchens to the sunlight.
Published in Daily Times, September 13th 2017.
