Belle Glade Is Very Depressing... (Miami, West Palm Beach: apartment, crime, how much)

[Chelito23]

What a lot of people don't realize about the area around Lake Okeechobee is that it literally RAINS everyday there in the summer. It isn't like the SE Metro areas where it can rain for a week, or every other day. Come hell or high water it will poor violently and you will have BIG storms in the late afternoon. And it gets much hotter than the coastal areas. I know, people will say it rains all the time in Miami too, but a lot of the time the storms brush the western areas and head off harmlessly into the Glades (a.k.a La Belle) where they go ganhbusters. It is kind of neat if you are into weather like I am.

On the other hand, it gets a lot colder out there in winter, and even in the summer it gets down to 70 at night while the low in WPB or FLL is 82. Just wanted to share that tid bit.

[tallrick]

Actually I found it cooler than in the Miami area even in the summer. It rains, but I think the rainfall amounts are actually less than the metro areas. What is true is the intensity of the storms. I have never seen so much rain or lightning as I experienced on my land near Labelle. I was in my car and it rained so hard and there was so much lightning it was amazing. What had been bone dry was then covered with water. Up to 6 inches on the surface and the drainage ditch full! Another feature is the timing of the storms. On the coast you get one shot of thunderstorms. By the Lake I have seen both morning and afternoon lightning. Being cooler at night is a big plus, I have experienced lows of 69 degrees in the summer after storms!

[FLBoy123]

um.....No it doesn't rain everyday in summer. If it did then wouldn't we not have such a decrease in the lake??? It doesn't rain enough here and when it does it is over before you know it. That lake is so pathetic now. I can't wait to leave this town. It has gone way down hill after all of this. To many Rednecks anyway. Just wasn't for me

[Chelito23]

Well the lake is low because it doesn't rain reliably in the Kissimee River basin to the north...and what falls over Belle Glade doesn't go IN to the lake, it drains South and East to the coast.

Tallrick,

I am shocked you think it is cooler!!! Maybe there is some mini lake breeze action you are referring to? I have always felt it much hotter out there...and La Belle is like a sauna...but I do notice it is slightly less humid than at the coasts...and it is also interesting you said ir rains less (amount wise), maybe it is that the intensity of the storms makes it seem like more...? Also, how real of a threat is the levee breeching, assuming the waters were high? Is it more like a possibilty or a probabilty?

I also wanted to ask you about land up there. The prices are ridiculous as you know in Florida, but since this is a depressed area, I was wondering what you know about this (not investment wise but to relocate long term). Did the speculators get to it too? If they did I am sure that the market will crash hard out there, it isn't sustainable and will never be up and coming, with the lack of jobs and far-inland location. I am just thinking about a location like Belle Glade or Clewiston that is near enough to the SE Coast to come here every so often...and trust me, I am used to ghetto and poverty here...so if I can make a nice profit and sell here, I would consider buying a REASONABLY priced property in one of those towns, well prob. not Belle Glade but maybe Clewiston. And the immigrant and poverty issues don't bother me, I think I would feel "at home" with that craziness lol. I just want to have something simple, affordable and with a yard located within a gardening zone to support tropical trees and plants.

I saw you have land La Belle...how is it out there? I was there once and drove around...saw tons of Oaks and northern type trees. I am more attracted to Clewiston and east of there since it is warmer at night during the cold snaps, and I would want to take advantage of that to continue my interest in tropical plants in their muck soils up there too. La Belle is just too hot and cold for a lot of tropicals without ridiculous protection. OK, let me know anything you know about those areas....I would like to learn more.

I really like the areas that are near that highway on the south side of the lake that are actually up on a man made ridge (**** or levy?)...they seemed aswesome to me. I don't know if you know the area I am talking about, between South Bay and Clewiston. I look forward to anything you can tell me.

[tallrick]

I used to go there a lot, a friend moved to Clewiston and I was building a house between Clewiston and Labelle. Things got complicated with the fires of 2001. It's been a few years since I have been that way, but I can tell you that up till 2002 the area was very affordable. In 1993 when I purchased property there the going rate for rural residential lots was 2,000.00 per acre. Commercial highway front property was about 50,000 an acre and up. Large plots of land were going for 800.00 an acre in plots of 200+ acres. Land wise the muck stops around Clewiston, and it is sand north and west of the Lake. You will find farms and the trees out there on higway 80 are all live oak, pine and a few cypress. Around the lake you can find tropical plants of all types. Small tree farms grow palms of all types. Mangoes can survive towards Labelle, and avacados all the way to Alabama. The sandy soils are good for citrus and cattle, although some land supports sugar cane. Vegetables are truly a struggle.

The area between south bay and Clewiston contains several small plots, and there is a remnant of another town, Lake Harbor with a water tower and some homes. Old highway 27 is just west of the current highway and its called corkscrew road. Take a drive on the remaining parts and you can experience a real horse and buggy road. The bad thing about muck lands is that they are vulnerable if the levy breaks. Fortunately that is very unlikely with the current low lake levels. Clewiston is a bit higher in elevation than the rural areas, but still vulnerable. The neat thing about the area is that it had the true small town feel, complete with the railroad and rural buildings. There are poor people there, but the rural areas just don't seem as unpleasant as the trailer parks. South Bay is dumpy but just outside town is not too bad. I was offered two pieces of property, one was that abandoned hotel just outside Clewiston for 150,000.00 more or less and the other was a home north of Clewiston on 10 acres for 89,000 but it was abandoned for many years. These deals were all before the year 2000. In current terms, land that sold for 2000.00 an acre in 1993 was going for 20,000 an acre in 2005. I feel that those prices will come down 60% or more when the national real estate bubble crashes. The General Development scam (port labelle) was legendary and a sign of things to come.

[joe33141]

I drove through Pahokee once on a Friday night en route to a camping trip at Kissimmee State Park. I was blow away. People were roaming the streets in packs. Literally.

What's the history behind that town? I get the impression it was former slave plantation. It seemed that more than half the area was dedicated to growing sugar cane.

I googled it but found nothing.

[danh600]

Originally Posted by joe33141

I drove through Pahokee once on a Friday night en route to a camping trip at Kissimmee State Park. I was blow away. People were roaming the streets in packs. Literally.

What's the history behind that town? I get the impression it was former slave plantation. It seemed that more than half the area was dedicated to growing sugar cane.

I googled it but found nothing.

Come on people!!!

Slavery was abolished in 1865. Towns didn't even start in the Glades area until the 1920s. There were very few white men in the area during the 1800s.

[Chelito23]

From what I know in local history, there were Bahemian blacks and Jamaicans and Haitians brought in as agriculture migrant workers during the 20s, and they were basically living in slave like conditions without the rights of citizens, plus being black in the south in the 20s, in an isolated, rural area....so there might not have been slavery, but things were very backwater and not good. That is the roots of the area, it is history. It explains the present also.

[danh600]

The Island workers were imported because it's hard work. No doubt about that. None of the local labor force wanted to cut cane. The imported workers were hired, usually there were many more applied then there were jobs. There was just little work in their home countries.

The men would come for the season without their families so they would stay in barricks. The barricks were not slave quarters. Really not much different then what many of our own citizens lived in while serving our country in the military. The workers were feed and housed and could leave anytime they wanted. They would often go to town to buy goods that they could not get back home.

They didn't have the rights of citizenship because they weren't citizens, but this doesn't mean they were abused. Many of them stayed after working the fields and many have applied for and are now citizens. Many stayed in the area because they could continue to earn a living.

The cane cutting is mostly done by machines now. I am not saying it wasn't a brutally hard job, it was, but the workers were here because they wanted to be. It was a good way for them to earn money when they didn't have that opportunity at home. There are American citizens doing hard jobs all over this country even today.

The Glades area was built on hard work but it was not built on slave labor or even "slave-like" labor.

[G.W. POOLE]

We use to love to come to Belle Glade in the winter months. We stayed at the rv park on the lake. Somewhere along the way, people from town started coming to the park in the night and stilling from us. WHY? This could be a gated campground. Campers would be glad to help watch and maintain
a guarded gate. This is called (WORKAMPERS) They along w/ myself will work X, #### of hours per week for full hookups.
Let us help you.
I also herd that the city of belle glade no longer has a police dept. is this true or not?
concerned missourian: