Aug 19, 2008 5:46 pm US/Eastern
Mayor Alvarez: Damage In Miami-Dade "Minimal"
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MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Miami-Dade County leaders and residents are looking ahead to Wednesday, when they expect most if not all of Miami-Dade County to be open and running as normal.
County Mayor Carlos Alvarez reported that damage across the county was "minimal." The big picture for South Florida was that Fay was a big rain-maker, but not a trouble-maker. Still, some homes were hit harder than others, causing a need for some clean-up.
According to FPL, nearly 8,000 customers lost power in Miami-Dade County and one of those customers was Mayor Alvarez. He lost power Monday.
"It's just one of those things of living in South Florida and going through tropical storms and hurricanes," said the mayor. However, his power was restored on Tuesday, he said with a smile. The mayor also reported that only 2-percent of the county's 2,600 traffic lights were out due to power outages.
One Kendall home lost a huge tree that once adorned a front yard; the same tree survived Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Wilma. "I'm shocked," said homeowner Lynn Shannon, "I was planning on having the tree checked out and possibly removed later this fall because I knew it was getting old." The tree did not fall through the houses ceiling, and repairmen are on their way, right behind a crew turning the tree into woodchips.
The county isn't done with its damage assessments. The mayor said officials from Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM) will assess the severity of beach erosion on Wednesday.
While all Miami-Dade County Public Schools remain closed on Tuesday, the Mayor said he expects schools to open on Wednesday.
"All indications are that there will be school tomorrow along with early voting starting at 11:00 a.m. and all county services will be back to normal tomorrow." It'll be the first day of school for students who were originally scheduled to return to class on Monday.
Not every student was pleased for the extra days off. "I was kind of sad. I wanted to go to school, meet my new teacher and make new friends," said 5th grader Giovanni Romero.
Mayor Alvarez did want to stress how pleased he was with the way the county government functioned and operated including the EOC.
"It was a good training exercise since it was a Tropical Storm. I'm very happy with the way all of the departments did." He went on, "I am very happy with the decisions that we made especially the closing of the schools. That was a no brainer."
Anyone in the county with questions can call the county's hotline at 3-1-1 where live operators are standing by to help.
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