- Tampa prepares itself for a massive influx of shit.
But it's impossible for me to definitively say if I would want to come back to Tampa for a vacation or anything like that. It's like meeting someone who could have become your best friend if you hadn't met them on the worst day of their lives. The downtown is a militarized zone, with streets blocked off and packs of cops walking and driving through in tight formation. Secret Service agents stand in intersections, wearing bulletproof vests. Helicopters are always hovering overhead, giving the streets a nervous feel. There are lots of machine guns and dump trucks sealing off streets and barricades in the middle of avenues. I was trying to make my way to a protest at the headquarters for Outback Steakhouse, which is controlled by Bain Capital, and the buses were completely sidetracked by the ever-enlarging security net. Because of unexpected protests downtown, police have expanded the bubble out past the downtown core, angering drivers far to the north and south of the convention center.
And the sky is petulant and vicious, firing down spouts of water directly at the streets. One downpour was so sudden and intense that it drove protesters under an awning. I couldn't have gotten any wetter if I had jumped directly in the Hillsborough River. This evening, the loud, friendly bar I was eating in grew silent when a patron's phone made the piercing sound of a tornado warning. Even when it's not raining—which is most of the time—stepping out from air conditioning into the humidity makes my glasses steam up immediately and my lungs tense up with the panicked feeling of drowning.
I think that somewhere under all this angry noise and atrocious weather, there's a genuinely sweet, laid-back city to enjoy. Too bad I'm never going to see it.