R-E-S-P-E-C-T

After moving to Miami I remember the first hurricane evacuation route sign I saw and thinking to myself how odd that such a sunny, wonderful, tropical place might need to be evacuated by such a powerful storm.

Both Hurricane seasons while I was living in South Florida where expected to be more active than normal. There were thankfully no hurricanes. I never took hurricane season lightly though after experiencing an unnamed storm my first week of living down there.

It started raining during the day and just wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t the type of rain that an umbrella would be of any help with either. You needed rain gear like they wear out at sea. The block and half walk to the parking garage after work was like an obstacle course in a water park (if there is such a thing). Streets were flooded to the point you couldn’t see curbs. My clothes were so soaked it was as if I had forgotten to take them off before getting into the shower. After making it to my car I thankfully had purchased scrubs that day so I changed into dry clothes for what I knew was going to be an extremely long drive home. The very thought of sitting in a car with soaking wet dress clothes on sends shivers up my spine. Yuck!! An 8-mile drive, which should normally be about 20-30 min in traffic, took over 2 hours. The fact that I actually made it home and my car didn’t flood was a miracle. The wakes from cars driving by was enough to make the car rock back and forth.

It rained for a solid week and the first thing I did when I got home was pack some dry clothes for the next day. To this day I have a dry set of clothes in the trunk of my car cause you just never know when you'll need them.

If I still lived in South Florida I would have experienced the eye of a hurricane as Hurricane Katrina came ashore right wear I lived in my Oceanside condo. I'm glad I don't live there anymore and just hope that New Orleans heeds the weather warnings.