MIAMI (AP) — Peacocks could be on the outs in some South Florida neighborhoods after the Miami-Dade commission agreed to loosen a law protecting the birds.
While the 20-year-old law still protects peacocks from harm, commissioners agreed Tuesday to allow cities to opt out if they present appropriate plans to humanely remove the divisive birds from areas where they’re not wanted, the Miami Herald reported.
“Mating season is when we get the most complaints. They get very aggressive,” said sponsor Raquel Regalado, whose district includes neighborhoods in Coral Gables and Miami where peacocks roam freely. “They lay their eggs, they build their nests, they peck the cars.”
Neighbors often clash over the peacocks. Some love the colorful birds while others complain of droppings, noise and the damage they cause by roosting on cars or houses.
“In my district, we learn to live with these peacocks,” said Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, representing Palmetto Bay, which has designated itself a bird sanctuary. “They almost become a part of the community. I know our residents lose it when anyone harms any of these peacocks.”
Stephen “Dr. Beach” Leatherman, a coastal scientist and professor at Florida International University, has been ranking the nation’s beaches for 30 years
It is one of two Florida beaches that were on the 2020 list released Thursday, along with Caladesi Island State Park at No. 6
Leatherman says he gives bonus points for beaches where smoking is banned and that are staffed with lifeguards
Some airports in Florida are reopening as Hurrican Dorian moves north toward the Carolinas.
Palm Beach International Airport reopened Wednesday morning, with the first flight landing around 8 a.m., coming in from Atlanta.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport reopened noon on Tuesday. However, while the airport itself has resumed operation, travelers have been reminded to check with their airlines about specific flights.
ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and ELLIS RUA,Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Dorian powered toward Florida with increasing fury Friday, becoming an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm but leaving forecasters uncertain whether it would make a direct hit on the state’s east coast or inflict a glancing blow.
The storm’s winds rose to 130 mph (215 kph) and then, hours later, to a howling 140 mph (225 kph) as Dorian gained strength while crossing warm Atlantic waters. The hurricane could wallop the state with even higher winds and torrential rains late Monday or early Tuesday, with millions of people in the crosshairs, along with Walt Disney World and President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Though Dorian is growing in intensity, some of the more reliable computer models predicted a late turn northward that would have Dorian hug the coast, the National Hurricane Center said.
“There is hope,” Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters said.
The faint hope came on a day in which Dorian seemed to get scarier with each forecast update, growing from a dangerous Category 3 hurricane to an even more menacing Category 4 storm. And there were fears it could prove to be the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida’s east coast in nearly 30 years.
Late Friday, the National Hurricane Center’s projected new track showed Dorian hitting near Fort Pierce, some 70 miles (115 kilometers) north of Mar-a-Lago, then running along the coastline as it moved north. But forecasters cautioned that the storm’s track was still highly uncertain and even a small deviation could put Dorian offshore or well inland.
Trump declared a state of emergency in Florida and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster-relief efforts. He told reporters that “Mar-a-Lago can handle itself” and is more worried about Florida.
“This is big and is growing, and it still has some time to get worse,” Julio Vasquez said at a Miami fast-food joint next to a gas station that had run out of fuel. “No one knows what can really happen. This is serious.”
As Dorian closed in, it upended people’s Labor Day weekend plans. Major airlines began allowing travelers to change their reservations without a fee. The big cruise lines began rerouting their ships. Disney World and the other resorts in Orlando found themselves in the storm’s projected path.
Jessica Armesto and her 1-year-old daughter, Mila, had planned to have breakfast with Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy at Disney World. Instead, Armesto decided to take shelter at her mother’s hurricane-resistant house in Miami with its kitchen full of nonperishable foods.
“It felt like it was better to be safe than sorry, so we canceled our plans,” she said.
Still, with Dorian days away and its track uncertain, Disney and other major resorts held off announcing any closings, and Florida authorities ordered no immediate mass evacuations.
“Sometimes if you evacuate too soon, you may evacuate into the path of the storm if it changes,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
Homeowners and businesses rushed to cover their windows with plywood. Supermarkets ran out of bottled water, and long lines formed at gas stations, with fuel shortages reported in places. The governor said the Florida Highway Patrol would begin escorting fuel trucks to help them get past the lines of waiting motorists and replenish gas stations.
At a Publix supermarket in Cocoa Beach, Ed Ciecirski of the customer service department said the pharmacy was extra busy with people rushing to fill prescriptions. The grocery was rationing bottled water and had run out of dry ice.
“It’s hairy,” he said.
As of 11 p.m. EDT, Dorian was centered about 375 miles (605 kilometers) east of the northwestern Bahamas. That was also about 545 miles (880 kilometers) east of West Palm Beach with the storm packing sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph). It was moving west-northwest at 10 mph (17 kph). Forecasters warned that its slow movement could subject Florida to a prolonged and destructive pummeling from wind, storm surge and heavy rain.
Coastal areas could get 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of rain, with 18 inches (46 centimeters) in some places, triggering life-threatening flash floods, the hurricane center said. FEMA official Jeff Byard said Dorian is likely to “create a lot of havoc” for roads, power and other infrastructure.
Also imperiled were the Bahamas , where canned food and bottled water were disappearing quickly and the sound of hammering echoed across the islands as people boarded up their homes. Dorian was expected to hit by Sunday with the potential for life-threatening storm surge that could raise water levels 15 feet above normal.
“Do not be foolish and try to brave out this hurricane,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said. “The price you may pay for not evacuating is your life.”
In Florida, the governor urged nursing homes to take precautions to prevent tragedies like the one during Hurricane Irma two years ago, when the storm knocked out the air conditioning at a facility in Hollywood and 12 patients died in the sweltering heat. Four employees of the home were charged with manslaughter earlier this week.
DeSantis said the timely message from those arrests is: “It’s your responsibility to make sure you have a plan in place to protect those folks.”
At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, NASA moved a 380-foot-high mobile launch platform to the safety of the colossal Vehicle Assembly Building, built to withstand 125 mph (200 kph) wind. The launcher is for the mega rocket that NASA is developing to take astronauts to the moon.
The hurricane season typically peaks between mid-August and late October. One of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. was on Labor Day 1935. The unnamed Category 5 hurricane crashed ashore along Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sept. 2. It was blamed for over 400 deaths.
Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein and Michael Balsamo in Washington; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Freida Frisaro and Marcus Lim in Miami; Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida; and Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed to this report.
Beachgoers in New Smyrna Beach, Florida are on alert after three people were bitten by sharks over the weekend along the popular tourist hot spot.New Smyrna Beach is a world-renowned surfing destination and is considered the shark attack capital of the world according to the International Shark Attack File.It’s estimated that anyone who has swum in these waters has been within 10 feet of a shark.
Officials say a Nashville man in his early 50s was bitten on his foot Sunday afternoon and was treated on the scene. This came just hours after two surfers were attacked, minutes apart, on Saturday in the same area.
There are still some delays out of Orlando International Airport this afternoon.
Airport spokesperson Carolyn Fennell says that’s after flights across the country were canceled this morning.
She says a glitch in an air traffic control system called AeroData was to blame. Several major airlines use the database across the country.
“There were a number of airlines here at Orlando International that use the system. There were approximately 99 delays and it included Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit.”
At the expense of angering theme-park goers, Walt Disney‘s (NYSE: DIS) move to increase some of its Disney World ticket prices on Tuesday is the right call. The world’s largest theme-park operator has now boosted admission rates for 31 consecutive years.
All of the headlines and social media uproar centers on Disney World’s introduction of a new holiday tier to its pricing. It will cost visitors $159 for a single-day ticket to visit any of Disney’s four Florida theme parks during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day this year, a whopping 23% more than they paid to visit Disney World during the last week of 2018. However, the more affordable passes received more modest 2% to 8% increases, with the resort’s cheapest one-day passes not budging higher at all.
As happens every year around this time, Walt Disney World has raised the price of park passes—this year, both for one day, one park passes and park hopper tickets. The shift comes shortly after Disney announced the opening date for the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land.
“A twin-engine Piper aircraft went down in Lake Okeechobee while on approach to Pahokee Airport at approximately 3:30 p.m. today,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. “The flight departed from Tampa International Airport. The FAA is investigating. However, the National Transportation Safety Board will be in charge of the investigation and will release updates.”
