Ft. Lauderdale Beach Closed, Broward In Clean Up Mode

#FLPD 🚨 IMPORTANT 🚨The barrier island/Fort Lauderdale Beach is CLOSED to everyone until further notice #HurricaneIrma — Fort Lauderdale PD (@FLPD411) September 11, 2017 FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Now that Hurricane Irma’s wind, rain, and storm surge have subsided, cities have gone into damage assessment and clean up mode so they can get back up and running again. Ft. Lauderdale’s barrier island which has the city’s famous beach remains closed. Irma’s storm …
See all stories on this topic

In nearly back-to-back days, multiple locations of geographic importance to the seafood industry have been smacked silly by hurricanes and are now struggling to recover. But more trouble could be on the way. Hurricane Irma devastated the Florida Keys, threatening to all but wipe out this year’s expected $50 million harvest of spiny lobsters, and closed down the Miami International Airport – one of the industry’s biggest distribution hubs — before taking strange twists and turns all over …
See all stories on this topic

Enter the email address associated with your account. We’ll send you instructions to reset your password. In nearly back-to-back days, multiple locations of geographic importance to the seafood industry have been smacked silly by hurricanes and are now struggling to recover. But more trouble could be on the way. Hurricane Irma devastated the Florida Keys, threatening to all but wipe out this year’s expected $50 million harvest of spiny lobsters, and closed down the Miami International Airport – one of the industry’s biggest distribution hubs — before taking strange twists and turns all over South Florida and unexpectedly rolling up the western coast of the state. The disruption of Chilean salmon imports alone will prove costly, as the airport is used to transport hundreds of thousands of pounds of the fish every day. Miami’s ports and airports reportedly handle much more than half of all foreign-caught fresh salmon, tilapia and Mahi fillets coming into the US. Miami-based processors and importers told Undercurrent News they tried to slow imports as much as possible to avoid a logjam but are now relying on freezers to preserve some of their supply until transportation disruptions can be resolved.   Days earlier, Hurricane Harvey slammed into the center of the Texas Gulf Coast, once again doing damage to the state’s major shrimp and oyster fishing operations. They are fighting to recover, too, and seeking as much assistance as possible. But bad things come in threes and now sitting on the Atlantic Ocean with a good chance of targeting Florida is Hurricane Jose, the Orlando Sentinel reports.  It’s still early, but Bill Kelly, executive director of the Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association, said he has not heard that any of his members lost their commercial fishing vessels as a result of Hurricane Irma. That’s the good news. Now that the sea around the Keys has calmed down and winds have dropped to about 20 miles per hour, Monroe County, Florida’s roughly 1,250 licensed fishermen can bring their boats out of the tiny creeks and other safe areas where they tied them to survive the storm. But soon the roughly 650 that catch spiny lobster will have to go out and check on their combined 350,000 traps and also determine if the crustaceans have changed their locations. Many of the traps will be okay, Kelly knows, but he also expects there will be some fishermen who find trap tangles more than 100 feet wide. It’s important to get the gear out of the water as soon as possible to avoid an environmental impact, he said. Kelly hopes Keys fishermen will be able to resume business as usual in a week. As Undercurrent News reported last week, fishermen in the Florida Keys are responsible for 80{c6e459f3f8a7f1c6715c33c2c736476ccfdba55c64391dd836a5f8397e034060} of the spiny lobsters caught in the state and were counting on a 5.2 million pound harvest this season, which started a little more than a month ago.   Chilean salmon farmer Pesquera Camanchaca is reporting that its employees in southern Florida are safe and “no one suffered any major structural damage”, following the recent passage of Hurricane Irma. The company, which said last week that it expected a disruption to its Chilean seafood shipments into the US, said that its supply chain should be back to normal shortly.  “We anticipate that Miami International Airport will be fully operational by Wednesday and as soon as the roads are navigable, we will begin shipping orders out of Miami,” the company said. “Shipments out of New York should not be impacted.” Maryland distributor JJ McDonnell said in a statement Monday, Sept. 11, that given the “hard knocks” the industry is taking from recent hurricanes, it expects both wild-caught and farmed supplies to be affected in the short-term. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are causing supply issues “across the board”, the company said.  “Not only wild caught but, also farmed as transportation is being disrupted and the normal supply chains on farmed products are not as readily available,” the company wrote.  The distributor’s buyers are putting in extra hours to secure alternate supplies but advanced notice about large orders would be appreciated, the company said. “Working together on this, I know we can work our way through it and supply the needs of your customers,” it said. “Everyone keep safe.” Blumar is delivering about 60{c6e459f3f8a7f1c6715c33c2c736476ccfdba55c64391dd836a5f8397e034060} of its usual volumes of Chilean salmon to the US as a result of the disruptions caused by Hurricane Irma, Sebastian Goycoolea Nagel, CEO of the US division of the Puerto Montt, Chile-based producer, told Undercurrent News Monday, Sept. 11.  But Nagel hopes to be back at 100{c6e459f3f8a7f1c6715c33c2c736476ccfdba55c64391dd836a5f8397e034060} by Thursday, and maybe even Wednesday, assuming Miami International Airport reopens for business.  Blumar, which exports between 50,000 and 80,000 pounds of salmon per day to the US, hasn’t slowed production in Chile.  Instead it is converting more of its fresh salmon to frozen, Nagel told Undercurrent. A few shipments that would normally head to Miami are instead going through Dallas, he added.  Nagel said it took him 23 hours to drive his family to a temporary location in Alabama.  He said the eight workers at his Miami operations all report to be safe, though he had not yet been able to reach anyone regarding the status of their warehouse and was concerned about the condition of a cargo unloading areas. “There will be a massive amount of coordination over the next few days,” he said.  The skies were cloudy over the Miami International Airport at noon Monday, but what were hurricane-force winds had diminished to a more pedestrian 18 miles per hour. Still, one of the seafood industry’s biggest transportation hubs wasn’t ready to predict when it would reopen. “MIA will be closed Monday, September 11. After a damage assessment today, we will determine if passenger flights can resume on Tuesday,” the airport said on its website. The website encourages the monitoring of its twitter account: @IflyMIA. Earlier today Emilio Gonzalez, director and CEO of the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, tweeted that the airport was “assessing water damage at all concourses, fallen trees, airfield, fuel and other damages.”   Also, spokeswoman Karla Cobreiro reportedly told the Miami Herald: “Some airlines will fly personnel and crew members to MIA in preparation for flights to resume.” The Herald reports that it used the flight tracker website Flight Aware to determine that 4,110 flights were canceled at Florida airports through Wednesday.  “While cancellations are expected to decrease as the week goes on, 152 cancellations were scheduled for Wednesday as of Monday, largely at MIA, FLL, Orlando International Airport, Tampa International Airport and Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers,” the newspaper notes. In nearly back-to-back days, multiple locations of geographic importance to the seafood industry have been smacked silly by hurricanes and are now struggling to recover. But more trouble could be on the way […] You’re missing out. Join the global community relying on Undercurrent News for quality reporting. The cookie settings on this website are set to “allow cookies” to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click “Accept” below then you are consenting to this.
See all stories on this topic

It looks like there is no Newsday subscription account associated with this login information. If you used an Optimum login, click the Connect Account button to use your Optimum login info to manage your Newsday subscription account. If you used a Newsday login, it looks like it’s not connected to an active subscriber account. To verify your subscription information, click the Connect Account button. Irma became a dangerous Category 5 hurricane on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017, with the most powerful …
See all stories on this topic

Federal fishing regulators are planning to cut back the fishing quota for golden tilefish for the next three years. Golden tilefish are prized as food and they are caught by longline and hook-and-line fishermen up and down the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says proposed quotas for 2018 to 2020 are 14 percent lower than the 2017 quota to prevent overfishing. The fish are not currently experiencing overfishing, but fishery managers recommended reduction based on …
See all stories on this topic