Upper Florida Keys Businesses Begin Reopening After Hurricane Irma

MIAMI, FL — Small signs of life of returning to the Florida Keys communities evacuated by government officials and ravaged by Hurricane Irma.

Several gas stations and a hardware store have reopened in the upper Keys after the storm. But residents still weren't being allowed past Lower Matecumbe Key. (For more information about the recovery from Hurricane Irma, subscribe for free to the Miami Patch and receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you're outside of Miami, find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

On Conch Key in Coral Key Village, a devastated trailer park remained a debris-filled ghost town. Cars left behind were covered in silt, and seaweed and strewn furniture filled what a week ago were yards. A line of fallen mailboxes still had mail from before Irma inside.

Watch: Hurricane Irma's Destructive Journey By The Numbers

Near Marathon, a sunken boat was visible in the once-again turquoise water.

At Marathon International Airport, workers loaded pallets of water onto military helicopters.

Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images