Sunday, February 3, 2013

Most unbelievable thing to happen to me...


The air was heavy and dense as the winds whirled outside. The sky had ominous green glow as it began to spit out rain onto the city of Jacksonville. The raindrops fell relentlessly onto my house with the pitter-patter of the rain falling and the wind howling Mother Nature was having a concert all around me. The house was dark. The heavy air seeped inside and dispersed around the home. I peered out the window into the chaos going on around my fortress, as it stood strong against the harsh elements outside. Hurricane Ivan was just begging and I did not like the looks of it already. I stepped onto the screened in porch to escape the suffocating stuffiness of the home. The wind blew through my hair and into my face as the smell of the sea became present. I moved to the corner of the small porch to peer down the road to the ocean. I could see the waves raging as if they were angry at the shore. They poured up onto the beach relentlessly as the water began to creep up onto the path to the street. There were no cars on the roads and all was silent except for the sounds of the angry storm invading the city of Jacksonville, Florida. As I stood in the small safe haven I noticed that there was no thunder, I began to believe that this storm was petty. “What is big, strong, devastating storm without thunder?” I thought to myself as I began to make my way back into the safety of the stuffy home. I pulled my damp hair up into a ponytail to relieve me from the humidity of the house as the siren of alert from the weather channel blared through the house. The words flashed across the television warning of high winds, flooding, and etcetera. I had heard all of these short-lived warnings before with hardly any repercussions. Hurricanes, tropical storms, and tropical depressions were just another aspect of life while living in Florida, it was something everyone was generally used to and took for granted. I trudged up the stairs to my room, again looking outside to see if these warnings may have some substance behind them. To my surprise the water was slinking up past the path now and onto the road, seeping into all the crevasses as it made it way forward. The winds picked up as well from the last time I checked my surroundings. The sea grass was bent over by the forceful wind. The power lines looked like a jump rope being swung around in a circle just waiting for someone to hop in. Finally I noticed the giant palm tree that was swinging from its base. This enormous palm tree that stood as tall as my home was swaying hastily from side to side in a rhythm that began to frighten me. I stared at the tree shaking against the green forbidding sky without blinking, mesmerized by the seriousness of the nature around me. Already shaken up by the swaying trees and high seas, the power began to flicker as I ran down the stairs to the comfort of my parents sitting in the living room. In an instant, the house was filled with darkness and an enormous crashing sound invaded the home as the house shook. We grabbed flashlights and ran to the source of the clatter. The exorbitant palm tree that I had been gazing at just moments before was not taking a nap in my bed in my room. The tree had crashed through the window I was peering out of crushing the roof, walls, my bed, but thankfully not me. That was the most unbelievable moment of my life. If I had not left my room, and retreated to the other side of my home, I would have been crushed along with my belongings.