From nothing back to something

 Bahia Honda is highly regarded as one of if not the most beautiful and best-kept locations within the Florida Keys. It is commonly voted as one of the most excellent state parks in the country and is visited by hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists every year. Being located in the Florida Keys, this park is commonly exposed to some very strong tropical storms and hurricanes each and every year and usually handles such said storms pretty well. One hurricane in 2017 struck this park harder than any other storm in recent history had and nearly wiped the park as a whole off the map. This hurricane was Hurricane Irma, which was a category four to five hurricane that is regarded as one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the United States in recent memory. It caused over 77 million dollars in damages across the southeastern portion of the country. The Florida Keys as a whole took some of the hardest hits from this Hurricane, Bahia Honda state park was located right where the eye of the hurricane passed over and took severe damages as a result of this. 

This image shows exactly where Hurricane Irma hit in the Florida Keys, it is shown in the picture that the outside of the eye hit right where Bahia Honda is located. The outer rim of the eye is often considered the strongest portion of a hurricane.

After the passing of Hurricane Irma, Bahia Honda State Park was almost completely destroyed, along with much of the surrounding areas. Most of the vegetation and trees around the park were ripped down and many of the buildings, pavilions, signs, and benches were either seriously damaged or completely destroyed. This left many parts of the park closed for extended periods of time, many parts of the park were even closed when we went on Monday, which showed to me just how much damage this hurricane really caused. Luckily many of the main buildings and trails around the main portion of the park were almost completely restored when we went there on Monday, which made me happy to see just how well it was able to recover. 

Shown above is a good before and after comparison of the main snorkeling area of the park, it shows that a large majority of the trees and vegetation on the beach, as well as the pavilion in the background, were completely destroyed. 

 Below is a photo taken on our trip to Bahia Honda on Monday, showing that much of the damage from the hurricane around the main area of the park has been restored and it looks much more similar to how it did before the Hurricane.