14 August 2004. (Note, what follows was posted over a month late.) According to the forecast, the hurricane was headed toward Tampa, which is about fifty miles north of Port Charlotte, where I live. A the last moment, though, it took a sudden turn into Charlotte Harbor and slammed my county and several others upstream, including Orlando, I understand. My house was in the "red zone," the zone where the hurricane was considered at its worst.

The bad part of the hurricane hit here at about four Friday afternoon. Prior to that it seemed very windy but not too bad. Shirley, my cat, was watching with interest through the glass door into the lanai (or screened-in back porch). We still had electricity. I was on the Internet, replying to one of my opponents at the Shakespeare Fellowship. I figured my computer would shut down at any moment, so sent just a partial reply, saying I'd reply in installments. I got a few paragraphs of the second installment done when we lost power. I felt on edge, but not really frightened. All at once, the whirr I was familiar with from sea-disaster movies and old radio programs about the Yukon got going and the backyard ornamental tree in the middle of my view through the lanai started really getting shook, and a large branch broke off from it. It fell toward the house, but didn't reach it. That pleased me. Within moments, though, the storm was jabbing the branch straight at my lanai. It was soon shoving it in and out through the screen.

I wasn't up to watching or listening, anymore, by that juncture, so grabbed Shirley, and shut myself in the bathroom. I don't believe I was scared, just keyed up--and worried about Shirley. I had a candle lit but couldn't keep track of her. She didn't get very agitated or whine, but she kept hiding. I also worried about my big pine and oak, both of which were close enough to the house to flatten it if they were knocked over. I can't remember thinking about much except how long I could expect the bad to continue. My estimate is that it only lasted about twenty minutes.

I later heard that the storm went through very rapidly, which was why we didn't get the predicted serious floods (or, really, any floods, at all)--it didn't have time to generate the necessary high waves, I think. Anyway, at around 4:20 my living room suddenly lit up. It was much brighter than it's been for years because the tree ordinarily blocking light in through the lanai was mostly on the ground. (Enough of it stayed together, though, for it to survive.) I lost just my already nearly dead orange tree, and my decrepit tangelo tree; much of the tall pine came down, but it's still standing; ditto the oak next to it; I have another oak I rarely think about that the wind broke a tree-sized branch part way off of that landed on a corner of my roof, but only from a height of a few inches so without little damage.) The brightness was the eye of the storm, I'm sure. It lasted ten or fifteen minutes, I think. I wandered around the house, surveying things. The lania by now was shredded, with the "spear" a few feet into it through the screen. The living room ceiling was spotted but I don't think I had leaks yet. I never noticed much rain although a friends's rain gauge later indicated we'd gotten three inches. I felt pretty relieved, but still concerned, figuring that when the eye passed, we'd get another twenty minutes of maximum aggression. We did get more darkness, and some winds came back, but they seemed diminished, to me. I stayed in the bathroom again, but couldn't find Shirley. She turned out to have gone to a better place: under the hospital bed in the room I keep her in at night (so she won't keep me awake by running into for short visits, and then leaving, every hour or so.