September 2010
Hypoluxo Island, South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream & Coastal Delray Beach
Hurricane Season
Volume 3 Issue 9
Along the Coast
Generators at gas stations and groceries will help after a storm
Pile driving continues for inlet jetties
By Mary Thurwachter
The South Lake Worth Inlet project just keeps pounding on and the rhythmic driving will resound through the beginning of next year. The pile driving at the inlet — known as the Boynton Inlet — is part of a $7 million project that started last year to rebuild the sand transfer Marine patrol plant and jetties, as well as leaving the Boynton Inlet. rehabilitate the seawall on Bird Page 19 Island. The sand transfer plant, which pumps drifting sand from the north side of the inlet to the south beaches of Ocean Ridge, already has been completed, made more efficient and quieter with a new electric engine. The Bird Island seawall was expected to be completed in the last week of August with the last pouring of seawall cap concrete. All that will be left for the island construction is replanting. But work on the jetties is still in progress. The overall completion date of the project stands at March 2011, the initial projection, said Tracy Logue of Palm Beach County’s Department of Environmental Resources Management. “We had planned, however, to keep one jetty open for fishing while the other one was under construction, but things didn’t go as planned.” The sheet pile driving on the
Who can forget Hurricane Wilma, the menacing Category 3 storm of October 2005 that sneaked up from the southwest and left us without power for days? Now here we are in the middle of another hurricane season that experts predict to be busier than usual and we wonder what, if anything, has changed to help navigate another big storm. There’s nothing we can do to prevent a hurricane from blowing our way, but some improvements have been made to help us better cope with a storm. For starters, several grocery stores and filling stations have installed back-up generators, so that we shouldn’t have to drive 20 miles or more, wait in line and cross our fingers that we will be able to fill up our tanks or restock our pantries after the storm. Of course, not all filling stations have generators, and that includes Vin’s Gulfstream Texaco at 5002 N. Ocean Blvd., near Briny Breezes, the only gas station east of the Intracoastal Waterway. However, with the loan of a generator during the last hurricane, the station was able to provide gas to employees of Bethesda Memorial Hospital. The station is likely to do the same for the next hurricane, says manager Vin Dinanath, whose wife works at the hospital. But since Vin’s is in an evacuation area, Dinanath and company will skedaddle like the rest of us before any hurricane strikes the barrier islands. Work done in the past year by Florida Power & Light may make life a little more tolerable after the storm, too. The power See HURRICANE on page 19
By Margie Plunkett
Workers use cutting torches to level steel pilings on one of the jetties along the north side of the Boynton Inlet. Photo by Jerry Lower
See INLET on page 16
Coastal Star
A charitable gift that keeps on growing: Ocean Ridge boy donates hair By Emily J. Minor
His last haircut — before The Big One — was in southern California in February 2009, during an impromptu family trip to Disneyland. He and his dad dodged into a local shop and got it all cut off for reasons involving immediate personal comfort.
Meet Your Neighbor!
Thelma Gannon thrives on life in Briny Breezes and volunteering at Bethesda Bargain Box. Page 17
It was hot. Then, after that, the beautiful boy with the amazing smile was spending time with his second cousin, a young man with a brain tumor who had gone bald because of chemotherapy. And he began to ask questions. “You know, he was just curious about what was
happening,” says his mother, Sharon DuBose. “They were just natural questions a child would ask.” And that’s how 8-year-old Nong Ex DuBose wound up at Colby’s Barber Shop in Ocean Ridge one recent morning, Tim Cox, the barber, cutting it all
See LOCKS OF LOVE on page 2
Inside Lantana police chief retires A look back at Rick Lincoln’s decade of service in the town. Page 10
Boynton High memories Former students ponder historic building’s future. Page 12
Nong Ex DuBose donated his tresses to Locks of Love to be used for wigs. Photo by Tim Stepien
Cool off with peppers’ heat
Sizzling ways to bring summer temperatures down a notch in the kitchen. Page 14
Obituaries Pages 22-23