Hurricanes. I have been in five hurricanes throughout my twenty years of life and I did not enjoy any of them. The first Hurricane I was in happened to be Hurricane Andrew

and told us schools in Polk County would be closed the next day. I was so excited to have the next day off to lie around and do nothing. The weather was beautiful out all day, nothing other than clear skies’; it was not until close to sunset that the weather started to change. The hurricane was not supposed to come to the Winter Haven, Florida area and within five minutes it made a turn, and it was for the worst. My family had not prepared for any storm because all that morning the news said that it was going to take a different path, but little did we know it was going to come our way. The sky got dark really quickly and the rain started to come down hard, then the wind picked up a lot. My younger sister, my mom, and my dog all went into the closet because it was the only room in the house without windows. We were in shock that the hurricane was really coming for us and the eye of the storm would be passing over my house. I hurried to the garage to get a flashlight and batteries. On my way out to the garage the power went out and I was walking back to the closet when the window shattered and the shingle went through the window. Once the window shattered it continued to get worse from that point forward. I could not describe the thoughts that were going through my head. It seemed like it was only raining and heavy winds and the next minute you could hear the roof being ripped off of our house. It seemed like it had been going on forever and then all of a sudden everything was silent for a few seconds, the eye of the hurricane was over us. The calm did not last for long, a tornado touched down during the hurricane and it made the damage worse. After it was all over we walked outside and everything was destroyed. There was not one house in the neighborhood that did not have damage. The street lights were out, the roads were flooded, and there were fallen trees all over. People were trapped in their houses if they had houses left. The trees in the road blocked the way of traffic. The street lights were out and gas stations were out of gas for weeks. If there was gas the lines to fill up were backed out into the road because people wanted to power their generators. The power in my house did not come back on for weeks. For the second time in my life I had to go stay at another house because my house was not in any condition to live in. A week later when people started to clean up a second hurricane touched down. The second one was not as bad as the first, but it added onto the damage of the first. I was not at my house when the second one hit, but when my family and I went back after to see if the house was torn apart more and it was. The entire house smelled wet and stale. The wood floor in our dinning room was filled with water up to the crown molding and there was water seeping into the walls of the house causing mold and us to have to have the insulation in the walls replaced. Contractors were ripping families off and many were left without anywhere to go. The schools were closed for weeks and communities came together. Shortly after the second hurricane the third one came and did the final damage. A tree fell into my next door neighbor’s roof of their kitchen. The three hurricanes; Jeanne, Frances, and Charlie made me realize I never wanted to be in another hurricane again, not even if it meant school was going to be canceled. Unfortunately, I was. I moved to Tallahassee the summer of 2008 to attend Tallahassee Community College. The weather over the summer was rainy and there were many summer showers, some storms, but once again I was in a city where there was another hurricane warning. Living on my own made it extremely scary because I did not have the people I was closest to if the storm were to come and touch ground. I remember looking out my window and seeing the trees blowing uncontrollably and I was hoping it did not come into the window. Luckily the trees did not, but the power did go out for quite some time.   All in all I have been in many hurricanes, more than most people and they are horrible storms. I do not think people realize how bad they truly are until they have experienced them first hand. I hope to have been through my share of them.