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There has been a truly massive effort to clean up the roads in Southwest Florida following the impacts left from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Seriously, there’s at least 15 to 20 minutes added to my commutes every day now when I’m taking my son to/from school because I get stuck behind work vehicles.
There are all sorts of ‘tree trucks’ around, the ones picking up massive piles of debris on the sides of the road, but it still feels like they are hardly making a dent as half the streets I drive down around Sarasota and Siesta Key are flanked by mountains of debris piles… And it’s those debris piles that Floridians are being warned to be wary of because they can provide great camouflage and temporary structure for venomous snakes.
My hometown took a direct hit from Hurricane Milton with the eye of the hurricane passing over my house. And it sounds weird to say that we ‘got a little lucky’ by being directly hit by the eye of the hurricane but we did, because it meant that Sarasota and Siesta Key were spared the worst of the storm surge. It was, after all, the storm surge from Hurricane Helene that caused the most damage in this area. In fact, my son’s school out on Siesta Key is still nowhere close to reopening with no timeline announced yet…
I drove out to Siesta Key this past Sunday and took this near my aunt’s old house. You can’t even see the park behind these debris piles, and I was unable to drive down the street to check on her house and other family friends’ homes because the road was blocked by debris and trucks:
Post by @cassanderson
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Warning To Be Cautious Of Venomous Snakes In Debris Piles After Hurricane Milton In Florida
WPTV News in Palm Beach, on the other side of the state from where I’m located and from where Hurricane Milton made landfall, recently ran a story about venomous snakes being found in the debris piles.
Despite being on the other coast, that area got absolutely decimated by Hurricane Milton due to tornadoes. Those violent storms caused similar damage to the west coast of the state where Milton made landfall which means, sadly, a huge portion of the state of Florida is covered in debris piles at the moment. I can’t step outside without smelling ‘burn piles’ despite that being illegal… Anyway, this segment was ran on WPTV to warn locals to be vigilant when working or walking near the debris piles:
Their point about walking your dogs and being aware of the debris piles is something I’ve thought about every single day since Hurricane Milton made landfall here in my hometown. There are still so many small sticks and branches on the ground and I’m most often walking my dog at Dusk or Dawn and those tiny oak tree sticks play tricks on my eyes, making me think they could be snakes.
Then my dog, a great Pyrenees x Anatolian Shepherd mix, wants to stop and sniff every large debris pile. Most of the biggest piles on the streets where I walk my dog have been cleared but there’s this secondary line of piles on the sidewalks they haven’t even started to put a dent in yet. Debris piles everywhere!!
I’m pretty much living in a constant state of ‘is that a twisted oak branch with moss on it or is it a pygmy rattle snake about to bite my dog on the snout?’ And this video really struck a chord with me so I thought I’d share it for my fellow Floridians out there so spread the word of vigilance with venomous snakes around. The same can be said for those throughout the Southeast who are still reeling from Hurricane Helene. It’s been a pretty wild few week, y’all. Just be safe out there!