
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 18, 1995                   TAG: 9510180079
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MIAMI                                LENGTH: Medium

FLA.: RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY

The fields are so soggy that farmers are just sitting around, watching The Weather Channel. The air is so humid that mold and mushrooms are sprouting from windowsills. In the saturated Everglades, deer can't find land to graze on and an estimated 90 percent of the herd has died off.

Whatever happened to the Sunshine State?

It's waterlogged, and people are starting to go batty.

``We're all fidgety, bored. We're like bulls tied up in a pen,'' said Danny Helms, who runs the packing house at Five Brothers vegetable farm in Homestead. ``It's been a week and a half since we've been able to get into the field and do anything.''

Almost 79 inches of rain have fallen on Fort Lauderdale this year - nearly 27 inches above average. In one 29-hour stretch ending Tuesday, Palm Beach International Airport recorded nearly 16 inches.

``It's killing us,'' said Mary King, who plowed under part of her 300-acre squash field in Homestead, south of here, because it had rotted.

One of the busiest hurricane seasons on record brought on the heavy rain. Hundreds of people who were forced from their homes by Tropical Storm Jerry in August were flooded out again by Hurricane Opal two weeks ago.

It was still raining Tuesday, the result of several fronts and the outer bands of Tropical Storm Roxanne, swirling across the Gulf of Mexico.

No rainfall records have been broken so far in Florida, and forecasters are reluctant to predict any.

``Incredible,'' said John Cole, a forecaster at the National Weather Service. ``This has been a really, really bad year.''

Ron Barnett, a psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Kensington, Md., said the relentless rain could have psychological and physical effects on Floridians used to sunshine, outdoor sports and hot beaches.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, the depression and listlessness most commonly associated with the ``winter blues,'' also occurs in people deprived of sunshine, he said.

Depression, irritability, fatigue and weight gain are common in people with the disorder, caused by a change in the chemistry of the brain. Sunlight, or artificial light, restores the chemicals to normal levels.

Helms said his brothers, unable to get tractors into the fields because they'll get bogged down, instead come into the packing house office and watch the weather report. ``There's nothing else for them to do,'' he said.

by CNB