The sun came out yesterday afternoon, and the Bay area glistened as if — well, not like it was reborn, exactly, but more like it was under several inches of very questionable water and festooned with a number of felled palm trees.
Tropical Storm Colin did not go quietly, and by midday Tuesday St. Pete Beach residents were being asked not to shower, wash dishes or do laundry due to a dangerously overtaxed sewer system. What's more, the city of St. Pete announced in the late afternoon that it would discharge "partially treated wastewater" directly into Tampa Bay to ease its own overburdened processing system. Lemme ask you: If you lived right next door to a magic volcano that erupted liquid cat poop every couple of years, how often would you check your umbrella and rubber boots for holes?
A Hernando man allegedly grabbed a 13-year-old girl and tried to abduct her right in front of her mother at a Dollar General. Not on any level the kind of plan that ends with the successful collection of a retirement-enabling ransom.
And finally, Lakeland authorities were called to Lake Hunter when a man reported seeing an alligator with a human corpse in its mouth. This is the second time in as many weeks that gators have been caught munching on dead people. We're about one more incident away from these reptiles realizing that the moving ones taste fresher, so please, people, even though it's something of a Florida tradition, stop disposing of your deceased loved ones in lakes.
This article appears in Jun 2-8, 2016.