The United States Army activated Cudjoe Key Air Force Station in 1959. It was to track missiles traveling through the Eglin Gulf Test Range. The Air Force took over operations the next year. After this, it became a detached installation of Homestead Joint Air Reserve Base. The station flies a white radar aerostat. It is known locally as "Fat Albert". This is used for drug interdiction missions by the Drug Enforcement Administration. On April 20, 2007 a Cessna 182 crashed after its left wing struck the tether anchoring "Fat Albert" . The aerostat is marked on air navigation charts inside a restricted area. The area has the warning, "Caution: Unmarked balloon on cable to 14,000 [feet]."
It is possibly named after the Joewood tree ("Jacquinia keyensis"), a native species. It is also known as cudjoewood. But writer John Viele of Summerland Key gives a better reason for its name. He believes that Cudjoe, a very common West African name, was the name of a fugitive slave or free negro who lived on the island at some point before to Gerdes' survey in 1849.
Cudjoe Key is located at (24.664298, -81.482339).
U.S. 1 (or the Overseas Highway) crosses the key at approximately mile markers 20.5 – 23, between Summerland Key and Sugarloaf Key.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 14.6 km (5.6 mi). 13.6 km (5.2 mi) of it is land and 1.0 km (0.4 mi) of it (6.93%) is water.
As of the census of 2000, there were 1,695 people, 799 households, and 541 families living in the CDP. The population density was 124.9/km (323.6/mi). There were 1,482 housing units. The average density was 109.2/km (282.9/mi). The racial constitution of the CDP was 96.22% White, 0.88% African American, 0.47% Native American, 0.88% Asian, 0.12% Pacific Islander, 0.71% from other races, and 0.71% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.66% of the population.
15.6% of the households had children under the age of 18 living with them. 62.0% were married couples living together. 3.4% had a female householder with no husband present. 32.2% were non-families. 21.7% of all households were made up of a single person and 7.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.12 and the average family size was 2.43.
12.2% residents were under the age of 18, 3.7% from 18 to 24, 27.1% from 25 to 44, 38.8% from 45 to 64, and 18.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The average age was 48 years. For every 100 females there were 108.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 109.4 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $57,500, and the median income for a family was $59,883. Males had a median income of $36,094 versus $31,250 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $27,085. About 4.4% of families and 5.8% of the population were below the poverty line. Of these, there were 5.7% of those under age 18 and 5.4% of those age 65 or over.
Whenever, Wherever
"Whenever, Wherever" is the debut English-language single for Latin music artist Shakira. Taken off of her first English-language album "Laundry Service" it was released in late 2001. She also recorded a Spanish-language version of the song titled "Suerte". It was the best-selling song of 2001. The video won the 2002 Latin Grammy Award for "Best Short Form Music Video". The song was written by Shakira and Gloria Estafan.
Laundry Service
Laundry Service is the fifth studio album by Latin music artist Shakira. It was Shakira's first album in English. It was released in late 2001, preceded by the first single "Whenever, Wherever". Other singles after that included "Underneath Your Clothes" and "Objection (Tango)". It has sold more than 13 million copies.
Tay Bridge
The Tay Bridge (or Tay Rail Bridge) is a railway bridge about two and a quarter miles (three and a half kilometres) long that spans the Firth of Tay in Scotland, between the city of Dundee and Wormit, Fife ().
As with the Forth Rail Bridge, the Tay Bridge has been called the Tay Rail Bridge since the construction of the Tay Road Bridge over the firth. The original rail bridge replaced an early train ferry.
The present Tay Bridge is the second Rail bridge over the Tay. The first one collapsed in 1879 in a storm, with great loss of life.
The original Tay Bridge was designed by noted railway engineer Thomas Bouch, who received a knighthood when the bridge was completed. It was a lattice-grid design, combining cast and wrought iron. The design was well known: it was used with success in the Crumlin Viaduct in South Wales in 1858, after the use of cast iron in the Crystal Palace.
A previous cast iron design, the Dee bridge which collapsed in 1847, failed due to poor use of cast-iron girders. Later, Gustave Eiffel used a similar design to create several large viaducts in the Massif Central (1867).
Proposals for constructing a bridge across the River Tay date back to at least 1854. The North British Railway (Tay Bridge) Act received the Royal Assent on 15 July 1870 and the foundation stone was laid on 22 July 1871.
The original design was for lattice girders supported by brick piers resting on bedrock shown by trial borings to lie at no great depth under the river. At either end of the bridge the single rail track ran on top of the bridge girder, most of which therefore lay below the pier tops. However, in the centre section of the bridge (the “high girders”) the railway ran inside the bridge girder, which could then run above the pier tops to give the required clearance to allow passage of sailing ships upriver (e.g. to Perth).
However as the bridge extended out into the river, it became clear in December 1873, that the bedrock really lay much deeper; too deep to act as a foundation for the bridge piers. Bouch had to redesign the bridge.
He reduced the number of piers and increased the span of the girders. The pier foundations were no longer taken down to bedrock; instead they were constructed by sinking brick-lined wrought-iron caissons onto the riverbed,
The company which had the contract for building the bridge went bankrupt while Bouch was redesigning the bridge. The replacement company did poor work. Almost every part of the bridge was substandard, including the iron and the ties and fixings. Lack of precision in the bolts and braces led to ad hoc on-site fixes, described by one witness at the later inquiry as "about as slovenly a piece of work as ever I saw in my life".
The bridge was opened for passenger traffic on 1 June 1878. The next year, on June 20 1879, Queen Victoria crossed the bridge to return south from Balmoral. Bouch was presented to her before she did so, and on June 26th 1879 he was knighted by the Queen at Windsor Castle.
On the night of 28 December 1879 at 7.15pm, the bridge collapsed after its central spans gave way during high winter gales. A train with six carriages carrying seventy-five passengers and crew, crossing at the time of the collapse, plunged into the icy waters of the Tay. All seventy-five were lost. The disaster stunned the whole country and sent shock waves through the Victorian engineering community.
At the time a gale estimated at force ten or eleven (Tropical Storm force winds: 55–72 mph/80–117 km/hr) had been blowing down the Tay estuary at right angles to the bridge. The engine itself was salvaged from the river and restored to the railways for service.
The collapse of the bridge, opened only nineteen months earlier and passed as safe by the Board of Trade, is still the most famous bridge disaster in the British Isles. The stumps of the original bridge piers are still visible above the surface of the Tay even at high tide.
The inquiry held that "the fall of the bridge was occasioned by the insufficiency of the cross-bracings and fastenings to sustain the force of the gale on the night of December 28th 1879 and that the bridge had been previously strained by other gales".