What is your most vivid memory of nature?

No doubt about this one.

It happened August 13, 2004.  I was in my master bedroom closet with a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old and hurricane Charley was headed for my house as a catagory 4.  I could not evacuate: the storm had changed direction so quickly there was no time.

By 9:30 we were in the center of the storm and then lost power for good. I had a noise machine that I use to block out noise when I sleep, on and thank goodness it blocked 90% of the noise of the wind. I was aware of something knocking against the outside wall of the house.. this was either our wayward plastic wheel barrow or the neighbor's wooden fence. The house actually shuddered in the wind, making me hold my breath in anticipation of a crash or a BOOM that never came. My nighbor called me around 8:30 to check on me. He told me it was pretty amazing out there, having just come home from work as head of security for a nearby university. "We are ok" I told hiim "staying in the closet till it goes by." "That should be another hour," he told me. "Hang tightt"

I opened the front door once at around 8:45 and could barely get it shut.. so I bolted it and put a love seat in front of it. My biggest fear was the roof or a window coming out. After the radio told me things were settling down, I continued to hear sporadic wind gusts.

At 11:15 I could not stand it and got up to look around with a flashlight. The first thing I saw out the back sliding door was the tree in our neighbors back yard.. it looked now like a sharp stick in the ground.. the top was missing. I looked out the front window (it was very dark) and saw something in front of the front door and walkway. I contemplated this for a minute and realized it was the tree that had been in the front yard. Had it been 3 feet higher it would have hit my roof or window. As it was, it completely blocked my front door.

At this point I wandered around the house with the mag light. I walked slowly and carefully, my feet thinking I would find water on the floor at some point. But I did not see a broken window and other than a leak around the dining room window.. I think from pure wind and rain force, I did not see gaping holes in ceilings or walls. The phone still worked!

I fell asleep on my bed at 12:30 fully clothed and left the kids in the closet with the door open.

I awakened at 7:15 Am to incredibly bright sun in the bedroom doorway. I could not stand it. I had to know. I slid out of bed and padded into the kitchen and over to the sliding glass doors. I slid the blinds open and opened the back door to the lanai and blinked four times. No damage. The pool had more water in it .. about 5 inches.. but the cage had no damage. The trees behind it had branches all over the yard. I opened the door to the outside of the cage and found shingles all over my yard, squinting, I looked up at my roof in the sun, my breath held. Not only were all the shingles there, our solar pool heater had not moved an inch.

It was unnervingly quiet. There was not a single bird singing.

I started wandering around the yard. My neighbors wooden fence looked like a drunken monkey had installed it.. several slats in my yard. There was the wheelbarrow on its side. Two of my garbage cans were missing.

I walked to the front of the house.

Sure enough, the tree in front of the house, probably a 15 footer, was now parallel to the ground and blocking the front door. The lattice backing on the front of the house was bent down, the bouganvilia blocking the front door.

The neighborhood looked like a tornado had hit. Windows out, roofs in pieces, trees uprooted.

We drove around the neighborhood that day.. the huge uprooted elms, the street sighs at 45 or 90 degree angles.. the lights in pools, the detroyed or missing cages .. we were so lucky.