I’m thinking today not just of how beautiful it is — though it is certainly that — but of how low-lying, how houses and docks cluster along the shoreline and canals, how the place is threaded through with water.

Soon, the winds will blow, the seas will rise, the rain will fall. People are doing everything they can to prepare for the monster Milton, but how can any place cope well with storm surges of 10 feet or higher?

My trips to the west coast of Florida through the years have shown me how intimately people can live with water, how close to it they want to be, how calming they find its presence.

Now the presence has become a menace.