As fires continue to burn in South Florida, some florists are finding it difficult to deliver orders due to congested traffic conditions and road closures.

Over the weekend, firefighters battled flames that stretched more than 120 square miles from Brevard County to Miami, according to the Associated Press. Residents in the area are still advised to remain indoors to steer clear from smoky conditions, even though at press time fires were mostly contained to the rural Everglades National Park.

The situation has caused some problems for Beautiful Bouquet Florist in Palm Bay, Fla., where fires have destroyed at least 33 homes and caused millions of dollars in damage.

"We didn't have any damage to our property or business," says Peach Roberts of Beautiful Bouquet Florist, "but deliveries were really hard to do because a lot of the major roads were shut down."

Roberts adds that some employees had difficulty getting to work, and many people in the area were without electricity or water for some time.

About 15 minutes away in Melbourne, Yong Mills of Blossom House Florist says one of her employees lost part of her yard to flames but was able to ward the fire away from the house with a hose. While Mills's physical shop was unaffected, like Roberts at Beautiful Bouquet, Mills had to deal with slow deliveries.

"We had a couple of deliveries we had to delay until it was safe to go into the area," Mills explains.

The amount of backup due to closed roads also is a problem, says Cassandra Tuggle of Designs of the Times Florist, also in Melbourne. "There was a lot of traffic making it tough to get deliveries out," she says.

In Miami, Bill Schodowski of Transflora says operations are running as normal but the smoke was causing some irritation. "The quality of the air is pretty bad," he says. "A couple of our sales consultants were complaining that Monday night was pretty bad, just to breathe. However it is getting better as we speak."

Officials say winds from the southeast and the approval for the use of chemical retardants should improve the air quality and keep the fires from spreading beyond the park, reports The Miami Herald.

--Kori Kamradt
kkamradt@safnow.org

 


Previous Article    Next Article