'Welcome to Key West' sign found 300 miles away a month after Hurricane Irma
Just about a month after Hurricane Irma blew through Florida, everyone will know Key West is "Paradise USA" once again.
The iconic "Welcome to Key West" sign was found 300 miles away from its home on Thursday in Fort Meyers Beach, according to the Miami Herald.
The friendly greeting to the popular vacation destination off U.S. Route 1 went missing in the midst of the storm, which made landfall in the Florida Keys on Sept.10.
WINK News reports that an unidentified couple dropped it off at the Key West Express docking station on Thursday morning. Crew members at the dock loaded it onto a boat to ship it back home.
In the meantime, locals have made do with a hand-painted sign welcoming visitors to "Paradise."
Hurricane Irma hit Florida as a large Category 4 storm. It was so wide and powerful that both the east and west coasts of the state experienced hurricane-force winds (with a peak gust of 142 miles per hour), as well as coastal flooding, and heavy rain. It was one of the strongest storms to ever hit Florida's southwest coast.
Alison Main is an intern with Real Time. She is originally from St. Louis, but she currently lives in Los Angeles, where she studies Broadcast and Digital Journalism at the University of Southern California. Alison has previously interned at CNN, both with "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon" and with the New York news bureau. The highlight of her journalism career (so far) was serving as political director for USC Annenberg Media during the 2016 election season.
