Key Largo to Key West, Florida (CNN) It takes a special breed of cat to settle in the Florida Keys.

The slivers of land atop an ancient coral reef hold a mixture of hedonism and high water, luring anglers and divers, bikers and burnouts, pirates and professionals down US 1 to forget about life for a weekend ... or forever. Depending on your point of view, it is a road to paradise or a highway to hell.

With flippers and fishing poles poking out of a top-down rental, I'd chased sunsets over the 42 bridges of the Overseas Highway a half dozen times over the years but had never seen the darker side of the tropical ocean's split personality. Key West resident Ernest Hemingway described it as masculine and feminine. "La Mar" can give you an afternoon in crystal clear heaven but "El Mar" can flood your house and sink your boat.

Irma was El Mar on steroids. The storm laid bare those two sides of nature, and the human nature of those who live in one of the most vulnerable neighborhoods in America.

Key West in one photo. #irma A post shared by Bill Weir (@billweircnn) on Sep 8, 2017 at 1:51pm PDT

As the storm pounded Cuba, the independent, defiant streak of the Conch Republic was on display. On Duval Street in Key West, residents scoffed at the mandatory evacuation orders and shared personal lists of storms survived and every strand of stick-it-out logic from "I don't want to run out of gas in the Everglades" to "I have to be here to protect my boat."