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Key West's Annual Gay Festival, Tropical Heat, Is Proof the Island's Back in Business Post-Hurricane

"We’re pretty tough, we’re pretty resilient down here."

Key West’s decadent gay festival, Tropical Heat, had missed Hurricane Irma last year by less than a month. The five-day affair, which includes events like the Hotter than Hell fetish party, clothing-optional pool parties, a tea dance, and a toga party, was created to draw tourist to the island during what was a slow time of year: hurricane season. This week, the party will go on as planned, even though Key West struggles to jump back from a different kind of post-storm damage.

Dan Skahen, the executive director of Key West Business Guild (which organizes Tropical Heat), claims that the media focused more on the destruction in nearby areas, like Sugarloaf Key and the Big Pine Key, since it made for better news. “What people like to watch is destruction and houses being blown away and houses sitting in canals and roofs torn off and stuff like that, and Key West wasn’t like that,” he tells NewNowNext.

harles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/TNS via Getty

A lone cyclist rides along deserted Duval Street in Key West, Fla., on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. Hurricane Irma is approaching the Florida Keys and some residents refused to be evacuated. (Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/TNS via Getty Images)

Duval Street as Hurricane Irma approaches.

As a result, false perceptions about the severity of damage in Key West continued to grow, and while there was accurate reporting about Irma’s effect in the area, there were plenty of misleading stories which continued to fuel misinterpretations.

Joseph “Joey” Schroeder owns the New Orleans House and Bourbon Street Pub, which are part of the same complex on Key West’s famous Duval Street. Despite evacuation warnings, Schroeder decided to board up his home and hold fort in the guesthouse portion of the pub, since it’s about 13 feet above sea level on the island’s high ground. He also housed 35 people in the guesthouse at no charge—primarily his employees, their partners, their pets, and patrons of the bar who either didn’t make it out of the island on time, or stayed because of the high costs to evacuate.

“The hurricane was bigger than the state of Florida,” says Schroeder. “It was scary, you know, and a lot of people evacuated and thought this was the end of the world.”

OLIVIER KANUTY/AFP/Getty

Businesses are boarded and streets are empty in Key West, Florida, on September 6, 2017, as Hurricane Irma is forecast to hit Florida by September 10.Tourists and resident in the popular Key West islands were packing their bags on a mandatory evacuation order and were to begin leaving at sunrise on Wednesday. / AFP PHOTO / Olivier KANUTY (Photo credit should read OLIVIER KANUTY/AFP/Getty Images)

He describes the two days they spent locked in the pub as “fun, but exciting and nervous at the same time.” When the storm had passed, he likened the island to a “zombie apocalypse” because of how quiet it was. The roads leading into Key West were blocked for a few weeks to regular traffic, but he was open for business three weeks after the hurricane hit. It’s Joey's bars that will be hosting two Tropical Heat events this week: the Splash! pool party and the Big “O” exhibition party, which is the main event of Tropical Heat complete with DJs, porn stars, and foam.

“Trees fell, trees took down power lines, trees picked up water lines. We went around and repaired some of the water lines ,and we also we just sat, waiting for cell service to come back on,” he says. Because of the lack of communication and closed roads, Schroeder claims that at first people assumed they were all dead. Though Key West suffered three fatalities due to the storm, it turned out to be one of the safer areas to be in the Keys.

“It looked like Key West got a haircut. It wasn’t so bad,” says Skahen. “I mean, the trees were stipped of leaves, some non-native trees were blown down, a roof you could see had a blue tarp on it here and there.”

Skahen compares hurricanes in Key West to the blizzards he’d experienced growing up in the Midwest. “We’re pretty tough, we’re pretty resilient down here,” he says. “We may not get back up in a day, but as soon as the power is back on, we’re up and running.”

It surely wasn’t going to stop Tropic Heat, especially not 11 months down the road.

Larry Blackburn Photography

Key West filed for $7.5 million dollars in reimbursement to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), though it’s only been approved for a 2.7 million dollar public-assistance grant. The estimated damage to the state of Florida was roughly $19.4 billion dollars, which shows the relatively minimal damage to the island in comparison. But the problem remains that, even today, Schroeder and Skahen claim some people are unsure about the current state of Key West, an undoubtable result of bad press.

Key West Business Guild has posted frequently on Facebook to help correct the false perceptions that the island is ruined. Additionally, a million dollar ad campaign was launched by the Tourist Development Council to combat illegitimate media coverage with the message that they’re “good, really good” and “open and resilient.”

Larry Blackburn Photography

These efforts have paid off. Based on advanced sales of VIP passes, Skahen says that Tropic Heat is looking to see the same number of attendees that they had last year prior to Irma. Schroeder’s guest house is sold out during that time, as well, further proof that Key West weathered both the storm and misleading press.

“I think we’re going to have a really, really good Tropical Heat,” says Schroeder.

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