Just came across this article in the NYT:
On Jupiter Island, Storm Took Heavy Toll on Residents' Seclusion. (subscription required) Sorry if this is a dupe since it's from September 9th.
How many towns and communities in Florida are seeing this level of protection? Has everyone had to go through this kind of security to get into their neighborhood post-Frances? Is the National Guard doing the same duty in Fort Pierce? Orlando? Vero Beach? Are there many areas where the National Guard ensures only first responders and essential personnel like power crews and
landscape gardeners are allowed access?
I've seen articles about the NG helping out at distribution centers and with traffic, and supplementing local law enforcement - patrolling for curfew infractions and looters, but this particular duty just strikes me as being
off. Why isn't Jupiter Island using (and paying for) their own security guards 'as usual'?
Is this standard operating procedure? If so, I can calm down. If not, what makes the residents of Jupiter Island so deserving?
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Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times
A landscape crew worked Tuesday afternoon to clear a fallen tree from a street in Jupiter Island, Fla. The wealthy community was hit hard by Hurricane Frances, with much damage to its landscaping. bits and snips taken from the article:
>>In ZIP code 33455, rated by Forbes magazine as the wealthiest neighborhood in the nation (with a median home price of $5.6 million), the shrubbery has been shredded.<<
The proprietor of a landscaping company says >>"They can see each other. That's going to drive them crazy."<<
>>At the north and south entrances to Jupiter Island, a community in which the president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, played a central role in the 1930's, and where his grandmother lived for years, National Guardsmen monitored the flow of electrical and other repair people in and out of the island, which even at ordinary times is one of the best-guarded communities in the nation.<<
>>"Some of the old oaks are gone," she (the landscape proprietor) said, walking up one driveway with a reporter and photographer. In keeping with the island's traditions, the journalists had to have the permission of a resident to get past the National Guard.<<