Wilma Still Impacting South Florida

Hurricane Wilma, which came ashore like a garden-variety storm after torturing eastern Mexico, has faded from the national news scene but is still causing extensive problems in south Florida. Initially, one-third of the state (3.3 million) was without power, even though Wilma was only a Category 1 hurricane when hitting Florida's southeast coast. Almost 1 million hard-hit senior retirement areas still have no electricity, and the latest victims are tonight's trick-or-treat'ers.

The Miami Herald reports that Florida Power & Light now expects 95% of its customers to have power by 8 November. Only about half of Broward and Palm Beach Counties had power yesterday. Public schools remain closed, as do many doctors offices.

Stories have surfaced of seniors being trapped on upper levels of high-rise condos where elevators are not working and of seniors running out of portable oxygen (with no electricity to power regular oxygen equipment).

The Seattle Times ran a photo Sunday (print edition) of FEMA serving a meal of hot dogs to seniors; hot dogs are extremely high in nitrates and sodium and are not on the recommended diets of most seniors. They are, however, cheap.

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