Thursday before the storm hit Florida we put up the hurricane shutters and packed a few things for an overnight stay somewhere if necessary. I packed all of our photos, even removing them from frames for easier packing and we put the huge heavy container in the van. Then we watched all of the news updates throughout the evening, made several phone calls and went to bed thinking we’d head to Richard’s about noon since the storm would probably not hit us till late in the afternoon. When I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and went into the bathroom I could not believe the wind that I was hearing and already feeling against the house. And the sky was all lit up from the constant lightning strikes. My first thought was that it was impossible for Charley to be here already, not realizing how severe those outer bands can be. While my tired body wanted to just go back to bed and listen to the innocent wind while drifting back to sleep, a sudden fear hit me and I wanted nothing more than to get out of there! Our wood frame home not only sits in between two canals which meet at the corner of our property and opens into the Myakka River, but it also sits up on stilts. (Several weeks ago we had experienced a storm with winds up to around 35 or 40 mph and the vibration we felt in our home was a bit unsettling to me—I could not imagine how this home would feel during Category 4 strength winds!) When I told Kevin I wanted to go ‘NOW!’ he had no problem with that.

We had shutters on all but two of the windows—one of the kids’ bedroom windows and the bathroom window next to it. I thought that at least those windows might be broken and there’d be water damage in those rooms. The last thing I did before leaving home was close the bathroom door and put a pillow on the floor to absorb water.