Nowhere To Hide

Usually, when Wellington, Florida, makes national news, it's related to an equestrian event, a celebrity moving to the area, or success in high school sports or “reality television” singing auditions.

(Or ... due to an amazing high school debate team. Not that I'm one to brag.)

But this week, Wellington was in national - and international - headlines because of an event that took place 27 years ago: the arrest of an individual believed to have murdered area resident Marlene Warren.

This past Tuesday, Sheila Keen Warren - wife of Marlene’s ex-husband, Michael - was located in Washington County, Virginia, and arrested without incident. Keen is awaiting extradition to Florida.

Marlene Warren was fatally wounded outside her home in Wellington’s Aero Club development in May, 1990, by someone wearing clown makeup, a red wig, and holding balloons in what is believed to be part of a love triangle crime.

It sounds like a scenario straight out of a Stephen King story. And given Florida’s notoriety for seemingly daily outlandish crimes, one could be forgiven if they didn’t believe this tale.

While Keen was a suspect at the time, and law enforcement discovered a number of connections (for example, the abandoned getaway car was eventually traced to a rental agency Michael Warren did business with, and two clerks at a costume store picked Keen out of a photo lineup saying she had bought a clown outfit two days earlier), no probably cause could be established at the time, and no arrests were made. The case would remain cold for more than two decades, and was one of Palm Beach County’s most notable unsolved murders.

Three years ago, the PBSO Cold Case Unit reopened the homicide investigation. Witnesses were re-contacted and additional DNA analysis was conducted. A major spark in their renewed interest in the case was their discovery that, in 2002, Michael Warren married Keen in Las Vegas. The marriage established probable cause.

While never charged with Marlene Warren’s murder, Michael Warren was arrested in 1992 on a plethora of charges connected with his ownership of his used car dealership - one count of racketeering, six counts of grand theft, and 21 counts of odometer tampering. He did three years and nine months of a nine-year prison sentence. The PBSO said at the time it discovered his crimes while investigating her murder.

The murder took place in the days before Twitter, Facebook, and diehard tabloid media, so much of the publicity and gossip was contained to Palm Beach County, in large part because Marlene and Michael Warren were among the wealthiest western communities residents at the time; they had real estate holdings worth over $1 million, all of which were in her name. But, not all was happy in the Warren household; despite being married for 20 years, the Warrens were having marital problems, and Marlene thought her husband was having an affair.

Authorities have yet to comment on Michael Warren’s involvement in Marlene Warren’s murder, or any plans to prosecute him. But one thing is for sure - if you commit a major crime, you can run, but you cannot hide forever.

On The Other Hand, It Could Have Been Worse

As southeast Florida continue to piece things back together after Hurricane Irma, I can’t help but think … as bad as it was (and it was bad), it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

Because for all the damage to homes and businesses Irma caused in the region, the worst part of the mid-September storm was the power outages. And even that, by comparison to past years’ situations, pales.

Let’s face it: Yes, it's been a rough stretch two weeks ago. Yes, while there was a ton of hype, for once the reality was relatively close. And yes, we've had to deal with long gas lines, grocery aisles void of bread and bottled water, and the other “regular” inconveniences of preparing for a major hurricane. But for all that, in the end, we weren’t hit as bad as was forecast.

Part of the reason we can look back and breath a collective sigh of relief is that Irma came on the heels of Hurricane Harvey, which dropped an estimated 33 trillion gallons of water on Houston (the equivalent of 275 trillion pounds) - which, according to the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory, pushed the earth’s crust down two centimeters while simultaneously flooding the entire region in ways reminiscent of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Part of the reason is that when Irma nailed St. Martin, Anguilla, and Barbuda, she destroyed thousands of buildings, displacing many from their homes and knocking out power and potable water systems. Food and water are scarce. Hospitals and health clinics are struggling. Schools are closed indefinitely.

Part of the reason is, quite frankly, even when our area was hit by hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004, the area decimated was north of Sewell’s Point in Martin County: Port St. Lucie, Vero Beach, and the Treasure Coast suffered far worse than Palm Beach County.

Add the raging wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and the earthquake that just hit Mexico, and … yeah. We’re doing ok here.

None of this is to say we had it easy. But in the grand scheme of things, we lucked out. And that luck continued this week with Hurricane Marie, which blasted Puerto Rico with the same fury Irma laid on St. Martin, with the same devastating results.

So we pick up the pieces. And we donate like crazy.To organizations like the Red Cross (https://www.redcross.org), Band Aid For America (https://www.bandaidforamerica.org/), Boots On The Ground (http://www.bootsontheground.org/), Mercy Corps (https://www.mercycorps.org/), UNICEF (https://www.unicefusa.org/), Save the Children (http://www.savethechildren.org/), or SPCA International (https://spcai.org/). Or you can help with the rebuilding effort through Habitat for Humanity (https://share.habitat.org/globalvillage), or volunteer via the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (https://www.nvoad.org/).

Locally, the southern half of Florida is in need of volunteers; consider participation through Volunteer Florida (https://www.volunteerflorida.org/irma/). 

The 2017 hurricane season has been absolutely devastating, but it is always inspiring to see communities come together in times of such great tragedy to help those in need. We’ve done quite a bit; we’re not finished yet.

Nationwide Disaster Insurance Sucks

It really wasn’t so long ago when the stretch of real estate from Miami north past Vero Beach was ravaged by a quartet of nasty storms during a 13-month period, causing billions in property damage, in addition to loss of life and frayed nerves anytime something stronger than a light drizzle was forecast.

As I reflect on the recent turn of events in Houston, plus hurricanes Irma and Jose sweeping their way westerly through the Atlantic, PLUS the fires raging through the Pacific Southwest, I think it’s a really good time to have a national discussion about nationwide disaster insurance, which I believe would make life a lot better for individuals impacted by these kinds of situations.

Individuals like ... for example ... me.

According to preliminary estimates, Hurricane Harvey may inflict as much as $30 billion in damages on homeowners. But only 40 percent of that may be covered by insurance - and of that, the federal government will bear the biggest liability.

When natural disasters strike, concern about the health, safety and welfare of loved ones is paramount. It should be the first priority. But a close second should be the financial health and welfare when it comes to recovering from such a disaster.

This is not the first time such a position has been advocated, for a nationwide disaster insurance program to be implemented. The concept has been discussed in Washington, D.C. for years, but with minimal results - which is surprising, given the criticism the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been subjected to the past decade or more. Although insurance is largely limited by location, natural disasters occur without regard for such boundaries; hurricanes don’t hit the Florida-George line and say, “Whoops! Gotta stop here!” When Mount St. Helen blew her stack in 1980, the eruption column rose 80,000 feet into the atmosphere and deposited ash in 11 states plus parts of Canada.

No matter where you live, you can’t escape the possibility that a terrible natural disaster might one day happen to your home or business.

The problem is, current homeowners’ insurance policies are designed to be specific, largely to limit risk. But policies are riddled with lists of exclusions and specifications that could leave you uninsured when you need it most. For example, flood damage is excluded under standard homeowners and renters insurance policies, and while you can get replacement cost coverage for the structure of your home, only actual cash value coverage is available for possessions.

Proponents of natural disaster insurance call for blanket coverage across the nation, meaning that whether you face fire, flood, tornado, earthquake or hurricane - or any other such disaster that comes your way - you will have adequate coverage to salvage your home.

As noted previously, national disaster insurance would create a much wider pool for risks by encompassing communities across the nation that will not likely face natural disasters every year - or at least at the same time, which would make it profitable for companies. Better yet, it’s not a hard idea to implement - the national flood insurance program already gives us the template. And it would dramatically reduce the federal government’s financial responsibility to rebuild homes and businesses, allowing leaders in Washington, D.C., to use our tax dollars more wisely.

Scam Artists? Yes!

In many a horror film, there have been situations where a phone rings, and we, the audience, instinctively want to go meta and yell at the screen, “Don’t answer the phone!”

In our world, there have been a plethora of similar situations, thanks to the rise in telemarketers and scam artists trying to make innocent people the subject of real-life horror scenarios, complete with identity theft and credit fraud.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission issued a warning to consumers about a relatively new scam hooking individuals with just one word: “Yes.”

According to the FCC, the scam begins as soon as an individual answers the phone. A recorded voice or an actual person asks, "Can you hear me?" And the consumer responds, “Yes."

"The caller records the consumer's 'Yes' response and thus obtains a voice signature,” an FCC news release said. “This signature can later be used by the scammers to pretend to be the consumer and authorize fraudulent charges via telephone.

"According to complaints the FCC has received and public news reports, the fraudulent callers impersonate representatives from organizations that provide a service and may be familiar to the person receiving the call, such as a mortgage lender or utility, to establish a legitimate reason for trying to reach the consumer," the news release added.

What is most disheartening about this twist on the tried-and-proven scam is that it relies on “local” phone numbers, not out-of-area exchanges. Individuals are more likely to pick up if an unfamiliar number is local, as they might think it’s someone from their child’s school, or a neighbor, or someone with whom they might be familiar. This is less likely to happen with calls from non-local area codes or anonymous calls.

The FCC shared the following tips:

• Don't answer calls from unknown numbers. Let them go to voicemail.
• If you answer and the caller (often a recording) asks you to hit a button to stop receiving calls, just hang up. Scammers often use these tricks to identify, and then target, live respondents.
• If you receive a scam call, write down the number and file a complaint with the FCC (https://www.fcc.gov/) so it can help identify and take appropriate action to help consumers targeted by illegal callers.
• Ask your phone service provider if it offers a robocall blocking service. If not, encourage your provider to offer one. You can also visit the FCC's website (link is listed above) for information and resources on available robocall blocking tools to help reduce unwanted calls.
• Consider registering all of your telephone numbers in the National Do Not Call Registry (https://www.donotcall.gov/).

Snopes, the urban myth debunking site, has classified the scam as “unproven,” because it has yet to "to identify any scenario under which a scammer could authorize charges in another person's name simply by possessing a voice recording of that person saying 'yes,' without also already possessing a good deal of personal and account information for that person, and without being able to reproduce any other form of verbal response from that person.”

But, better safe than sorry; it’s still extremely plausible, especially with advents in new technology. Even if a scammer doesn't use a "yes" answer to attempt to sign someone up for an unwanted service or product, it still has value to the scammers; just by answering, that person has proven their phone number is active, which indicates an individual will answer calls from unknown numbers. The scammer can then turn around and sell the number - and others - as sales leads to other solicitors of questionable repute.

The LeBron James Hurricane Index

According to LeBron James, there’s not one, not two, not three, but four storms a’brewing in the Atlantic right now. And that could mean bad news for Palm Beach County and southeast Florida.

One, Hurricane Gert, continues to spin parallel to the United States' East Coast, and in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s closer to the Carolinas than Florida, so it doesn’t appear to be much of a threat here - especially since it looked to be heading northeast of Nova Scotia. 

But three other tropical disturbances are disturbing, and by next week could be either sorry, soggy excused for storms or barreling full-throttle toward the United States mainland.

If all three continue to develop into tropical storms or hurricanes, they'd be named Harvey, Irma and Jose. However, at this time it doesn't seem likely all three will continue to grow.

Then again … we are heading into the heart of the mean season. Historically, hurricane season peaks from mid August to late September, when conditions are generally more favorable for more intense cyclones. And if hurricanes had bar mitzvahs, last week Hurricane Charley would have been reading from the scriptures, and next week Hurricane Frances would be doing the same.

It’s hard to believe that thirteen years have passed since Florida got nailed by the Fab Four of hurricanes; it was between August 9 and September 27, 2004, that Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne made their presence felt and re-landscaped much of the state, leading to thousands of blue tarped roofs and millions in damages.

Just last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration nudged up its forecast for the current season after concluding the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean were likely setting the stage for more hurricanes. They now expect the season to produce 14 to 19 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes with winds topping 110 mph.

So with all this in front of us, it seems like a good time to remind you of the obvious: be prepared! Create an emergency communication plan with your family. Have emergency supplies in place at home, at work and in the car. Check your insurance coverage, since damages caused by flooding are not covered under normal homeowners’ insurance policies. Know your local community’s evacuation plan and evacuation routes, how to receive alerts and shelter information. And listen to local officials for storm information.

The time to prepare for a hurricane is before a storm is bearing down on the region, when you have the time and are not under pressure. If you wait, the odds are you will be under stress and could make poor decisions. Plus, that’s when much-needed non-perishable foods and supplies dwindle quickly and may not be available. Take the time now to create and write down a hurricane plan, know where you will stay to be safe for a possible storm, and get your supplies in place.

For more tips on getting prepared for the 2017 hurricane season, visit www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare.