Latest Key West, Florida Stories
By Laura Myers KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - Thinned ranks of tourists watched bared-bottom Santas and other adult shenanigans at Fantasy Fest, Key West's yearly street salute to Halloween delayed by 2005's hurricanes. Parade-watchers on Saturday packed downtown Key West, located at the southernmost tip of the continental United States, for the festival themed, "Freaks, Geeks and Goddesses." Topless elves tossed beads and candy as people in bottomless Santa costumes waved to throngs....
By Laura Myers KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - Instead of fleeing, many hurricane-fatigued residents of the Florida Keys on Saturday went on an "Evacuation Pub Crawl." Instead of boarding up homes, others hammered away at "Fantasy Fest" floats. The authorities in the low-lying and vulnerable Florida Keys urged people to take Hurricane Wilma seriously as the storm, at one point the fiercest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, pounded Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and appeared likely to...
By Laura Myers KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - Florida Keys residents, renowned for their nonchalance in the face of hurricanes, adopted a wait-and-see response on Wednesday as Wilma, the fiercest storm yet, seemed set to bear down on the vulnerable islands. Officials in Key West, at the southernmost tip of the United States, warned that an 11-foot (3.4 meter) storm surge could swamp the low-lying chain of islands and wash out sections of the only highway connecting the Keys to the...
Latest Key West, Florida Reference Libraries
Dry Tortugas National Park is located in the Gulf of Mexico in the United States. The park consists of a small chain of coral islands, comprising 64,701 acres, but only 104 acres of land. The islands are about seventy miles from Key West, Florida and comprise the far western portion of the Florida Keys. The first European explorer to visit the area was Juan Ponce de León, who named the islands the Tortugas after catching 160 sea turtles near them. The term “dry” is used to denote the...
