Beach Runner said:
Two questions:
1. Is there excellent health care nearby for the 65+ crowd?
2. Are there adequate social services to provide transportation to medical services, grocery stores, etc.?
When you hit 50, you start thinking about stuff like this, knowing that you can't depend on your children to take care of you. Old plan: retire in Seagrove, Mr. Dr. BR doing GC, Mrs. Dr. BR teaching at FSU-PC (if I could possibly do that as a Gator). New plan: don't have one. Want to be in SoWal, but concerns about health care, social services, HURRICANES, etc., have made us rethink our retirement plan. Maybe live in a small residence near Pill Hill in Atlanta (you know, the Northside/St. Joseph Hospital area) and have a beach place in SoWal (or near JAX where we can fly to easily as old folks and have Mayo Clinic nearby in case the ticker starts to go out)? It'd be great ... to be ... in Gator Country.
We are getting a little off topic but I felt as a 30A resident I could share our reasons for moving here and why we like it.
We are retired and have lived here before Sacred Heart Hospital and 98 was widened.
Medical care, weather, and restaurants are all great!
We considered Jacksonville/St. Augustine area before we built here on 30A. We were attracted to the availability of more things to do and more services in NE Florida.
However, we did not like the beaches there which look dirty compared to this Caribbean like water here. Also, most of the beaches there have many vehicles driving on them.
Many of the properties we looked at were close to the water but were a long ways to the beach accesses. In comparison to 30A there is a scarcity of beach walkovers. Also with the greater required set back from the ocean also made a property ?close to the water? a long hike.
In addition, most of the coastal areas in NE Florida were low elevation and are so at risk for flooding/storm surge that they require flood insurance. Even inland areas around the St. Johns River were in flood prone areas. Flooding is a more significant cause of storm damage than hurricane winds.
We love the comparably laid back life in South Walton. We found the Jacksonville/ St. Augustine area just too crowded. We figured we would use the beaches more frequently than anything in a metro area.
If we want to go to museums or theater we just go to the city. There are nice intimate concerts here and if we want big name entertainment he head to New Orleans for several days.
We live close enough to the beach to be able to walk and not worry about parking. We also get the Gulf Breezes-something you don?t get much of north of the Bay. Our house is enough above sea level and away from any rivers, inlets, or creeks so we don?t have to worry about flooding.
We don?t plan to give up this paradise because of fear of a low probability medical or weather event causing us to go out of town for a while to seek treatment or shelter. If one of us got a rare cancer we would want to go to NIH or John Hopkins in the Maryland/Washington area any ways. We have friends who live here and get good cancer treatment and cardiac care .
What we like about South Walton is that we can access doctors and hospitals from Pensacola to Panama City. That gives us lots of choices. The primary physician we have now ( Dr. Bawa, Seagrove Beach) is as good or better than most we had in the metro area we left. And we can bike to his office! The grocery store , dentist, hair salon, and gym are also a bike ride away.
What also is nicehere is that unlike where we lived before, we don?t have to drive through sleet, ice, and snow and into high crime areas to get to the primary hospitals. Also, the emergency response here is much better than most metropolitan areas.
As far as hurricanes, the only one that was in the least bit inconvenient was Ivan. But we enjoyed our evacu-vacation to Tallahassee. Since we are close to 30A and our neighborhood's utilities are underground and at least 30 feet above sea level we got our services back very quickly.
We count our blessings that we don?t have to put up with flooding , earthquakes, tsunamis, and constant year long grid lock. Even the tornados we get here are less violent than those north of the bay. In fact the biggest danger we were in during Ivan was when devastating tornadoes ripped through Blountstown- a town near Tallahassee.
As far as restaurants-they have always been more than adequate for us and are just improving. Check out the new Old Fish House(Eastern Lake) with a fantastic band, the new restaurant in Seaside (the old Shades) and of course the reliable Cafe 30A and Olie?s great places (Red Bar etc. ).
