'Big Pass' property decimated.

Now, let me just preface this by saying, our old friend Winnie-the-Pooh would have recognized this area's surroundings as a "hundred acre wood".

What used to be called Shell Road, now Higel Avenue on Siesta Key, has always been a unique place - a pristine wooded seascape bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. Right now a large chunk stands naked, clear-cut and totally removed from it's natural past.  Native old-growth trees and a few non-natives were all uprooted, mowed down and bulldozed; and all removed within ten days.

Sixty plus years of my old stompin' grounds along Shell Road, Big Pass and the Gulf are gone. And, leaving behind, a Siesta Key that never was. A catastrophic hurricane couldn't have done more. Damn builders, developers, and selfish new homeowners - damn them all.