Eight Years Ago

Guess what I was doing eight years ago today? Cleaning debris from Hurricane Charley. The kids, Bones and I survived the storm huddling in the master closet. We heard the pool screen get blown over the roof and heard our giant oak trees hit the ground with big bangs. Windows were shattered, debris was everywhere. Scary. Inspector Gadget was at work trying to secure the newspaper facility. He was only able to get back to the house on foot. There were trees blocking street travel throughout our neighborhood and community.

I sure miss those big oaks. Here are the kiddos climbing. We had two this size tumble over. And a smaller one in the back yard. The neighbors got tired waiting for the city to chop down the trees, so they rented chainsaws and did it themselves. We hauled tree debris from dawn to dusk.

View from our roof. My little car amazingly survived the ordeal without a scratch. That's our pool screen lying in the trash pickup area. It took several days to get power back, but luckily we had a small generator that ran the coffee maker and a small television. We couldn't leave the neighborhood for at least a week, but once the streets were cleared we set out to see the damage. It was bad.

On a lighter note, I entertained the kids by having them haul debris for days and I learned to cook many quickly thawing items on the grill. We ate well and provided coffee to our neighbors without generators. That summer was exciting. We had two more big hurricanes after Charley. Never a dull moment. I'm hoping this hurricane season continues to be calm. Although, I could use a thorough fridge cleaning...