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Weather: A chance of showers and thunderstorms before 2pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 2pm and 3pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 3pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 89. Heat index values as high as 103. Light northeast wind becoming east 5 to 10 mph in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Tonight: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 8pm, then a slight chance of showers between 8pm and 3am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 77. East wind 3 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
The Flagler County Beekeepers Association holds its monthly meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Flagler Agricultural Center, 150 Sawgrass Rd., Bunnell (the county fairgrounds). This is a meeting for beekeepers in Flagler and surrounding counties (and those interested in the trade). The meetings have a speaker, Q & A, and refreshments are served. It is a great way to gain support as a beekeeper or learn how to become one. All are welcome. Meetings take place the fourth Monday of every month. Contact Kris Daniels at 704-200-8075.
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, where the City Commission is holding its meetings until it is able to occupy its own City Hall on Commerce Parkway in 2025. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
Notably: Last Friday was the fourth anniversary of the death of Larry Newsom, the crusty, once invincible Flagler Beach city manager. Flagler Beach City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur posted a brief, touching tribute on Facebook, with the picture above: “Missing you Larry Newsom. Hard to believe you’ve been gone four years. Your wish for a concrete replacement pier is coming to fruition. Thanks for your vision and getting us on the path to replace the pier even before hurricane Matthew tore it up back in 2016. Too bad you won’t be here to see it completed. R.I.P.”
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
May 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Public Workshops to Discuss Impact Fees
Friday Blue Forum
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
June 2025
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year’s Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. I am not looking for a naked maiden riding on a shell; I am looking for either a cloud or the crest of a wave hitting the shore at midnight. That, to me, is time coming out of water, and I stare at the lace-like pattern it puts on the shore, not with a gypsy-like know-ing, but with tenderness and with gratitude.
–From Joseph Brodsky’s Watermark (1992).
Pogo says
@Why? Because they can
“Florida homes owned by corporate investors: 117,000 — and counting
Experts say investors capitalized on the state’s population growth and minimal renter protections…”
“…The latter group drove the buying spree. The Times found that firms with ties to Wall Street and private equity own more than 10% of Florida’s single-family rentals, a rate five times higher than the national average, according to industry group estimates…”
https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/2024/08/22/florida-homes-owned-by-corporate-investors-117000-counting/
Ray W. says
The Cool Down reports of a labor shortage of trained and qualified solar panel installers. One given reason was that lifting and installing hundreds of 60 lb. solar panels per day in remote solar farm locations that ultimately involve a 12-to-18-month buildout, often in extreme heat conditions, is a disincentive.
In response, AES Corporation sells Maximo, a robot that can carry and properly install panels at a pace twice that of humans at a cost half that of humans, using AI-aided computer vision.
A Built Robotics-developed robot prepares panel foundations with a two-man team that works three times faster than the normal six- or seven-man teams.
Terabase Energy has a small mobile robotic solar panel factory that assembles panels from shipped in parts on-site, with a 25% faster build rate.
Right now, all three innovations are in the field, but the technology is new and still developing. If expected glitches are resolved, broad application is expected.
Make of this what you will. Me? The EIA already estimates that solar farms are already the cheapest alternative among the many current electrical production options available, with the estimated 30-year cost of building and operating a solar farm at just over 20% of what it costs to build and operate a new coal-fired plant over 30 years. Lowering construction costs of three different facets of solar farm builds could, or should, make solar farms even more attractive to investors.
Let’s think this through as a thought exercise. In my youth, the Ballough Road Honda-Suzuki dealer received new motorcycles in weather-proof crates; it stored them on a dock behind the building and assembled them when needed. Shipping space costs money. Partially assembled crated motorcycles cut space, which cut shipping costs back then; it should cut shipping costs now.
I can’t help but believe that shipping space-saving crated solar panel parts can cut overall construction costs compared to costs to ship fully-assembled solar panels. Assembling solar panels from crated parts on-site ought to make financial sense. Let’s argue the possibility that Chinese solar panel factories rely on suppliers to provide specialized parts. If they do, then American companies can order the specialty parts, too, and cut out the proverbial middleman. It is no secret that Harley-Davidson relies in part on Japanese-made suspension parts, as do each of the four Japanese brands. Harley builds engines and frames, but it doesn’t make every part used on each motorcycle assembled. Specialty suppliers are a big part of the process. I once owned a Chevy Z-71 model truck; it came standard with Ohlins shocks from a Dutch suspension company. Volkswagen doesn’t manufacture lug nuts; it contracts with a specialty supplier for the millions of product-specific different lug nuts it needs each year. If solar farm developers can order needed parts from various specialty suppliers and economically assemble them using a mobile micro-factory on-site, perhaps it will make financial sense to build American-based specialty parts factories, in part due to lower shipping costs.
I have repeatedly commented on the historical fact that 20 years ago, other than specialty brands, no American company assembled large kitchen and laundry appliances in America. Final assembly had been outsourced, mainly to China. With the Shale Revolution, as it is called in the industry, extracting more oil brought more natural gas. We couldn’t export LNG until 2016. A glut in supply formed. Natural gas prices plummeted. Appliance assembly requires large amounts of energy to shape and form metal, and cheap American energy made it cost-efficient to manufacture appliances in the U.S. in part also due to shipping costs from China. Now, significant portions of the appliances sold here are made here. Citing production efficiencies, Chevrolet moved a Camaro assembly plant to America.
We are straddling an energy revolution, a manufacturing revolution, a distribution revolution, an information revolution, a labor revolution.
If energy is cheap enough, it makes good business sense to build energy-intensive manufacturing here, as opposed to China, even if labor costs are higher here. The American steel industry, one of the bigger energy consumers, produced 89.7 million tons of steel in 2023. Steel imports were down 8.7% from 2022, as were finished steel imports (14.1%). Imported steel accounted for 21% of the domestic sector. Statista reports 87.8 million ton produced in 2019. In 2020, the industry output plummeted to 72.7 million tons.
The innovation sector is moving faster than the political sector. The naysayers among us find tiny faults and crow, hoping the noise will form the political mountain out of the technological molehill. I might be wrong. We might be damaging our planet just as much by innovation as we are by continuing to rely on carbon-based energy.
A number of naysaying FlaglerLive commenters persistently claim we were better off four years ago. We weren’t. We are better off now than we were then. Just ask the steelworkers who weren’t working four years ago.
Ray W. says
Per HuffPost, last week’s Montezuma Pass, AZ, Trump rally took place in front of a border wall erected, according to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department, during the Obama administration.
“[A] nearby extension was started under the Trump administration — at a cost of $35 million per mile — but didn’t get very far, with much of the construction material left in piles at the site.”
According to the article, 400 miles of already constructed wall was repaired or replaced during the Trump years and 52 new miles were actually built. Some of the newly built wall fell in a storm and, from a 2022 report, certain types of walls built during the Trump years was breached thousands of times using “inexpensive power tools.” Other sources reported that, with roughly $5 in supplies, simple ladders could be utilized to cross over.
Make of this what you will. Me? The Maginot Line from the Swiss border to the Belgian border, constructed at great cost and manned by tens of thousands of well-trained French troops, accomplished nothing. In May 1940, the German armies simply invaded through neutral Belgium and Holland and bypassed the fortifications. Later, Allied forces blasted through the German Siegfried Line as part of its roughly 100-mile front; not all of the 90-division-wide American force went through that line; it went around it, too.
Ray W. says
“were” breached