Before he leaves for work, Rick Darden, an accountant with his own firm, stuffs a long-sleeved shirt, slacks and dress shoes in a backpack. Then he heads out, clad in shorts and waders, for the half-mile trek through the seawater that has flooded the streets of his Florida Keys neighborhood for the past 82 days.
A colleague picks him up at the Winn-Dixie grocery store on the main road, Overseas Highway, and drives him to the office to change. In the afternoons, he puts his boots on again and catches another ride back.
“Humiliating,” said Mr. Darden, 54, describing his routine since the sea invaded the Stillwright Point community in Key Largo, leaving him and his neighbors leery of taking out their cars in the corrosive saltwater that now floods the streets. “It just restricts your ability to move out and around.”