It won't be too long before the employees at FLORIDA TODAY won't have any turtles to feed bread because the pond water is disappearing quickly. Less to keep themselves occupied during their smoking breaks: bummer.
The wildfires are nearly extinguished here in Brevard County, but Florida isn't out of the woods yet.
As you can see from this photo, it's still dry. The bird is standing on the bed of a pond behind FLORIDA TODAY, and it probably should have water above its head. The usual water level is at the grass you see in the background.
I thought that when the pond drained, there would be an alligator slopping around in the mud. No such luck. I still haven't seen a gator since moving to the great Sunshine State.
The final totals aren't in yet, but 42 homes were destroyed in the fires. You should go to my map on floridatoday.com to see the extent of the damage. The map has received about 7,000 hits (my most-visited online creation yet).
My next project will be to gather addresses of all homes destroyed and enter them onto the map. I was going to get the addresses myself, but the FLORIDA TODAY metro staff is working to get them instead, according to sources familiar with the situation.
My roommate says the woods behind my home is more of a marshland, so there's less likelihood of it burning. But if the arid pond is any indication, a marsh probably doesn't work an incredible amount in my favor.
Executive Editor Terry Eberle wrote about the scene in the newsroom last week. I should add that the copy editors at FLORIDA TODAY did an excellent job of handling the late-breaking news copy. It's tough to handle such an increased editing and design load with normal staffing levels and deadlines. And when you're covering a local story that becomes national, the greatest concern should be quality.
(Go to floridatoday.com/fireseason2008 for last week's front pages.)
1 comment:
That's one less place to hide dead people.
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