As summer continues to bring dangerously high heat to the Keys, the City of Key West wants to remind residents and visitors to be aware of signs of heat distress.
In extreme heat your body works extra hard to maintain a normal temperature, which can lead to death. In fact, extreme heat is responsible for the highest number of annual deaths among all weather-related hazards. For more information, visit www.ready.gov/heat. Remember: Extreme heat can occur quickly and without warning. Older adults, children and sick or overweight individuals are at greater risk from extreme heat. Humidity increases the feeling of heat as measured by a heat index. Pay attention to the warning issued by NOAA. When under an extreme heat warning, find air conditioning, avoid strenuous activities, drink plenty of fluids, and wear light clothing. Check on family members and neighbors, and never leave people or pets in a closed car. It’s also important to know the signs of heat-related illness and how to respond. Muscle pains or spasms in the stomach, arms or legs are a sign of heat cramps. Get to a cooler location and remove excess clothing. Sip cool sports drinks with salt and sugar. If the cramps last more than an hour, get medical help. Heavy sweating, paleness, muscle cramps, tiredness, weakness, dizziness, headache, fainting, nausea, vomiting are clear signs of heat exhaustion. Go to an air-conditioned place and lie down. Loosen or remove clothing and take a cool bath. Hydrate with cool sports drinks containing salt and sugar. Get medical help if symptoms get worse or last more than an hour. Heat stroke is the most dangerous condition. Symptoms include high body temperature exceeding 103 degrees; red, hot, and dry skin with no sweat; rapid, strong pulse; and dizziness, confusion, or unconsciousness. With these symptoms, call 911 immediately and cool down the person’s body any way available until help arrives. Heat distress can sneak up suddenly with dire results. Please take precautions to ensure your safety.
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KEY WEST, FL - August 14, 2023 - Lower Keys Medical Center administration hosted an awards ceremony for winners of the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses, which recognizes nursing professionals for excellence in clinical care and for exceptional compassion. Patients and/or their family members submitted nominations to highlight the care and attention provided by Tera Corum, RN, Labor and Delivery; Mallory Brogli, RN, Emergency Department; and Emelia Fernandez Cardenas, RN, Medical Surgical Unit. Laura Riley, RN, Director of Emergency Services, was awarded the Team Leader DAISY Award.
"We are so proud to recognize these outstanding nurses for the compassionate care and clinical expertise that they provide every day," said David Clay, CEO, Lower Keys Medical Center. "The nominations sent in by our patients and their families speak to the skills, sensitivity, empathy, and connection demonstrated by our DAISY Award winners." Elizabeth Hume, MSN, RN, Interim Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Quality Officer presented each of the awardees with a hand carved sculpture, a DAISY certificate and signature daisies at the ceremony. The DAISY Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that was established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, who died in 1999 from complications of an auto-immune disease. His family was inspired to create the Foundation to honor nurses who make a profound difference in the lives of their patients and families. Key West, Florida Keys – The Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden Staff along with our University of Florida IFAS Extension Agent, Maria Quirico will be hosting a Plant Health Monitoring Workshop at the Garden in the Toppino Nature Chapel on August 26, 2023 from 9am to 1pm. In a world of global trade and changing climate there are more frequent new threats to plant health, and early detection is the key to successful management. Participating in this FREE workshop will help you to recognize signs of these pests and diseases and to know how to react. Presentations will cover national, regional, and garden specific efforts in plant health monitoring. If you’re looking to broaden your horticultural training and help protect plants around you, then this FREE workshop is for you! Send questions to Alicia Manfroy at [email protected], find our event on Facebook or register with the link - http://weblink.donorperfect.com/202308_PHW Sponsored by and in collaboration with: Mayor Teri Johnston last week represented Key West in Tampa on a panel at the first conference focused on the Florida LGBTQ tourism industry: the Florida Out Coast Convention (FLOCC).
She was joined on the panel by Visit Lauderdale CEO Stacy Ritter and Visit Tampa Bay CEO Santiago Corrada, along with representatives from the American Hospitality & Lodging Association Foundation, the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, and the LGBT Meeting Professionals Association. FLOCC is primarily educational and offers several opportunities for networking within Florida’s tourism and LGBTQ leadership community. FLOCC is designed to help communities and businesses better understand the specific needs and challenges around LGBTQ tourism topics. August 6 - 12th, 2023 is officially Farmers Market Week presented by the National Farmers Market Coalition. According to their release:
In 2019 Daily Plan-it was granted a permit by the City of Key West to produce a farmer’s market at the Truman Waterfront Park subsequent to the Green Market at Bayview Park ceasing operations. In 2020 they were awarded a competitive bid and a four year contract. Since beginning operations they have successfully supported between 30 and as many as 80 small mom and pop businesses to participate each show. The Market showcases the beautiful Truman Waterfront Park and between 700 and 2200 guests attend weekly. There is ample paved parking (free for residents with stickers), bike racks and the location is on the free Duval Loop bus. Amenities include full restroom facilities, handicapped accessible paths, ideally suited for families with a playground and water feature, close to other attractions like the Eco Discovery Center and the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham, offers spectacular sunset views and is pet friendly. Regular community support, especially off season, is vital to the continued success of the Truman Waterfront Farmers Market and the vendors whose livelihood depends on it. Visit every Thursday 2 pm to 7 pm at the Truman Waterfront Park located at the end of Southard Street. KEY WEST, Florida Keys – The native plant Nursery at the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden
will be holding its monthly native plant sale from 9am to noon Saturday, August 19, 2023. Master Gardeners will be on site to answer any plant questions and plants that are available for sale are listed on the Garden’s website. August 50% off Sale on Rougeplant, Florida fiddlewood, Cat’s claw blackbead and Wild coffee. The Nursery contains 160 species of native plants available including Native & Cuban palms, Tomato and Pepper plants. The total nursery inventory totals more than 2,000 plants which attract birds, butterflies and other pollinators in 1-gallon to 15-gallon pots. Key West Botanical Garden members receive a 15% discount. The Garden is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit corporation and all proceeds directly benefit the Garden’s conservation program. The Garden is located at 5210 College Road on Stock Island. For more information call 305-296-1504 or visit www.keywest.garden. FLORIDA KEYS, FL – Monroe County and FWC officials met in Key West on Tuesday to discuss the next steps after being awarded $10 million from the State to start an artificial reef program in the Florida Keys. The meeting initiated the pre-planning process for the future of a Florida Keys Habitat Support Structure program. Stakeholders from the charter and commercial fishing industry were also in attendance and hopeful for the future of the program to take pressure off of local reefs.
"This is just the beginning, but we hope to set up a network of habitats from shallow to deep water that will support natural habitats and fish stocks. We will start with a focus on areas that are easier to permit outside of the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary," said Monroe County Administrator Roman Gastesi. "Every journey starts with a first step, and this is our first step." A few months ago, the County acquired 37 50-feet hollow power poles from the Florida Keys Electric Co-op's Sea Oats Beach project in Islamorada, which will likely be used as one of the first projects to be started with the money. Other projects suggested included using concrete fish domes and other ideas used in other counties across the State. There are more than 4,000 clusters of artificial reefs in Florida, and 37 coastal counties in Florida already have an artificial reef program in place. In the Florida Keys, there are 62 artificial reefs, including wrecks, that were mostly placed between 1982-1989. The most recent artificial reef placed in Florida Keys waters was the Vandenberg off Key West in 2009. Artificial reef sites are popular among divers and fishermen. The ambitious timeline set forward by FWC included having a draft grant agreement with a proposed initial scope of work by the end of August for approval at the September BOCC meeting. Following FWC's execution of the grant agreement, the framework for the program, establishing program goals and objectives, finding sites, meeting with stakeholders, and applying for permits will begin. The meeting was recorded and can be viewed at www.monroecounty-fl.gov/mctv under the "On-Demand" tab. Key West, Florida Keys – Your expertise is requested. 3 art mentors are needed to work with one of 3 different groups of students in one of 3 workshops over 3 weeks to design and create from natural or recycled materials (only), 3 new scarecrow sculptures for display in the annual Scarecrows in the Forest Art Exhibit at the Tropical Forest. The fall Scarecrows workshops will start in August with the scarecrow sculptures installed into the exhibit September 2nd. A $275.00 stipend will be offered to mentor artists for their expertise and time. Art supplies provided. Contact Misha at [email protected] or by calling 305.296-1501 or email [email protected] to apply HOMESTEAD, Fla. — The National Park Service (NPS) announced today the selection of James Crutchfield as park manager of Dry Tortugas National Park. Crutchfield will begin his new assignment on Aug. 13.
“James is a dedicated professional, passionate about his role in serving the American people through the mission of the National Park Service,” said Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks Superintendent Pedro Ramos. “His leadership and experience helping with damage assessments after Hurricane Ian make him a perfect choice to continue advancing the extensive recovery work that will benefit our park visitors well into the future.” Crutchfield is joining the Dry Tortugas team from the NPS Historic Preservation Training Center, where he served as the monument section manager since February 2022. Prior to that position, Crutchfield served as the chief of facilities, recreation fee project manager, and park mason across 10 years at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine. “I am proud to serve as the next park manager helping to protect and preserve the impressive array of natural and cultural resources at Dry Tortugas National Park,” said Crutchfield. “I am excited to continue the park’s great work and look forward to supporting a great team of employees.” Crutchfield has supported many parks during his NPS career through incident command systems, responding to several hurricanes and completing historic preservation on some of the most iconic structures in our nation, such as the White House and numerous American Revolutionary and Civil War battlefield monuments. Prior to joining the NPS, Crutchfield was a masonry instructor for a career academy program, a Veteran of the Florida Army National Guard, and even delivered a motor vessel from Alabama to Madagascar. Crutchfield will be moving from Chattanooga, Tennessee back to his home state of Florida and looks forward to working in an area where he has many personal connections. For more information about Dry Tortugas National Park, visit nps.gov/drto or follow the park on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Florida Keys Council of the Arts is proud to announce that Monroe County artists Beth Kaminstein and Tyler Buckheim Trosset have been named the recipients of the prestigious 2023 South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Award. Beth Kaminstein of Islamorada, and Tyler Buckheim Trosset of Key West, were both selected to receive this esteemed, five-county artist fellowship.
Tyler and Beth will each receive a monetary award of $7,500 and be included in an exhibition featuring the work of the 2023 recipients, which will take place at The Art and Culture Center/Hollywood at 1650 Harrison Street, Hollywood, FL 33020, October 14, 2023 - January 24, 2024. Beth Kaminstein graduated with a BA from Bennington College in Vermont, 1976 (Ceramics, Drawing, and Dance). Since then, she has enjoyed a rather diverse life living in Florence, Italy and then in NYC where she owned and managed her family’s hardware store, Kaminstein Bros. In 1989, she moved to Islamorada to have a family and continue windsurfing, among other things. While living in Islamorada, she worked to create a playground in the park behind the library in Islamorada, worked with her late husband, Ron Levy, on creating the municipality known as Islamorada, Village of Islands, built and ran a private pre and elementary school which then became the Upper Keys first charter school known as Montessori Island Charter School. Tyler Buckheim Trosset lives and works in Key West. She received a BFA from Florida Atlantic University in 2012 with a concentration in painting. Her work focuses on the delicacy of graphite drawing and portraiture, using historical photos from the Florida Keys, layered with texture rubbings. The work starts with transferring raised text, designs on glass liquor bottles, hand carved linoleum printing plates or textures from found objects. These unique textures give depth and detail to what will become the background. Then, Trosset layers into the rubbings drawn portraits of people from the past, working from an archive of military pass photos, passport photos and other portraits taken in Key West from 1917 through the 1980’s. The photos are from a time before photography was part of everyday life and give a more honest portrait than are often seen in modern life. The Consortium, an alliance of the arts councils of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach Counties has conferred the artists with awards at either the $15,000 or $7,500 level. These awards are among the largest such honors accorded by local arts agencies to visual and media artists in the United States. Celebrating 35 years in 2023 (established in 1988), the SFCC has awarded over $4 million in grants to more than 300 artists. In addition to receiving the grant, the artists take part in an exhibition hosted and organized by a visual arts institution in one of the five counties. The recipients were selected through a two-tier panel process which included the participation of regional and national arts experts. The 2023 regional panel, whose adjudications are based on the evaluation of the artists' work as evidenced by the work samples submitted, included: Ariella Wolens, Bryant-Taylor Curator, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale (Broward); Carrington Ware, Artist, SFCC FY 20-21 Recipient, Professor, Florida International University (Broward); Véronique Côté, Galleries Director, University Galleries, Florida Atlantic University (Palm Beach); Helena Gomez, Curator, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, (Miami-Dade); and Elvis Fuentes, Executive Director, Coral Gables Museum, (Miami-Dade). The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists is a cooperative project funded in part with the support of the Boards of County Commissioners of Broward, Miami-Dade, Martin and Monroe Counties and the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County. |
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