I came home about 4:30 and the sky seemed as clear and brilliant as it had been all day. Several calls came in and I realized I had to visit the crowd at Ditmar's Score. When I stepped out of the house at 6:30 the smell of burning wood was incredible, and it was a distant smell. I ran out and photographed The Flamingo, only six blocks away and it was eveloped in smoke; the whole town was.

Florida was in the vise of a natural pincer movement: Fires from Georgia to the Everglades had broken out and an unusual "sub-tropical" (meaning it probably won't be named Andrea) was head down the east coast eroding the beaches and threatening homes. The great hope is the system pulls over land and puts our the fires and give us a little to drink. Lakes in mid Florida are drastically low or empty.

God knows that tornado in Kansas was a monumental disaster; other areas like ours are just starting to act up. Nature scares me.