This hurricane season is certainly one to remember-and as folklorists we believe it is important for us to try to do just that. Across the state people have been sharing the folklore of disaster-stories, jokes, Internet lore. As we patch up collapsed ceilings, cut down beloved trees and generally try to keep going, I would like to invite you to contribute your narratives.

A Love Story

My hurricane story is actually my love story. A year ago, my boyfriend had moved to New Orleans to pursue a doctorate degree. We had met during grad school at FAU and had been friends until we fell in love. During last hurricane session, I had left for New Orleans for the first time on Labor Day weekend, during a hurricane warning. My flight must have been one of last ones that day. I had worried constantly about my family during my vacation and came home to hear all my friends' hurricane "war tales." My girlfriends were having cabin fever so we all went out to the one of the few restaurants that was open after the hurricane. I met someone new that night whom I would end up dating for a year since under the stress of a long distance relationship, my old boyfriend and I decided to part ways. Yet, I mourned the loss because after all he was the love of my life, but I had accepted that destiny had trust us in separate directions. Once in awhile, I'd yearn to go to New Orleans and just be with him.

A year later, my new boyfriend is caught at a bar with another woman and we break up. That weekend, my good old friend from New Orleans leaves me a voice message telling me to call him back ASAP. He has an urgency in his voice I've never heard before and although he doesn't tell me why he is calling, I turn around and utter to my mother "it's the hurricane" since Katrina had hit south Florida Thursday night. When I call him back, he says a hurricane is coming and he wants to come see me in Florida.

He couldn't get a flight out so he decides to drive through the night and promises me he'll wake me up in the morning and I am beside myself with excitement since I haven't seen him for an entire year. I couldn't sleep all night so I wake up early and then I receive another call, from a payphone (since he doesn't own a cell phone). He explains that he had two flat tires during the night and slept in a ditch but he is safe at a Wal-Mart near Tallahassee getting a new tire and can I book him a flight to Fort Lauderdale? I do, and he calls me back an hour later from the payphone and I tell him he only has to drive 100 miles to the airport. He makes it to my doorstep dirty and exhausted and we wake up early on Monday to see hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The levies didn't break until Wednesday so we spend hours watching the news while the rest of the world catches up with horror. Until Wednesday, he thinks he will be back to the city but we soon realize he may have to stay with me indefinitely. He only brought with him the clothes on his back and his laptop. We learn about the power of love and community. Mere strangers send us care packages thanks to craigslist and the airport in Tallahassee is kind enough to waive his long-term parking fees since he had to leave his car there for an entire month.

It took a hurricane to bring us together and we have been living together ever since. We also lived through Wilma and we wonder what other hurricanes will seal our fate since we are both moving to New Orleans by summer so he can finish his degree. Call it what you want- destiny, fate, God's plan, the forces of nature- but I know love is mightier than the winds of a hurricane and lives can be changed for the worse or the better in an instance.

-Kathy Rodriguez

Jennifer's Story

Sarah lived in Orlando for two years but decided in December of 2003 that it would be best for her to move home to Rochester, New York. Sarah is the most paranoid and frightened person I have ever met. She was raised to believe that everything, and I do mean everything, will harm her. She got much braver as our friendship grew.

Sarah decided to come for a visit over the summer. She was so excited to come back that she had been counting the days. Everyday she would send me an email, 17 days, 16 days, 15 days. August 11 th , Sarah called to say that she might not come. We were shocked, because she had been looking so forward to it. When we asked why, she said, well, there is a hurricane, and my mom is afraid that I will get hurt and she really doesn't want me to come.

We told her that we understood, but that we were not at all concerned, and that she knew what it was like during hurricane season. They always say it's going to hit us, and we prepare for the end of the world as if we are all going to float away within the next 17 hours, and then nothing happens. Sarah finally decided that she deserved her vacation and came in spite of the unknown impending tragedy.

Her plane landed on August 12 th , and everything was normal. We went about our normal day and night. When we woke up on the 13 th , things changed a little. We were not scared we were just, well, intrigued.

With eyes glued to the Weather Channel, Channel 6, Channel 9, and Channel 2 each time we heard a new hypothesis we were on the phone, to our friends, and to her mom. We were making our plans on what to do, in the event we would need to do anything . We really were not at all worried about being affected. We thought it would just make it a rainy dismal night, which would ruin our plans of going downtown that night. Our "preparation plans" included getting four other girls to come over to my house, renting a movie from blockbuster, cooking six frozen pizzas (just in case we lost power), and we made sure that we had plenty of cookies. We didn't have a lot of water and we didn't have ANY batteries.

We did have 15 cans of tuna, 1 weak flashlight, 5 cell phones, 3 cordless phones, and more candles than one apartment should have. We really were not counting on actually needing any of these things. Around 8:00 pm, our opinion changed a little. The winds started picking up, and by 10:00 we thought, this might be interesting. I believe it was around 10:15 when we heard on our walkman (the only source of news we had because we did not have power, and as I said, were not properly prepared) that the eye of Charley was moving down the Goldenrod corridor, which comforting enough, is where I live.

By this time, three of the girls and I had been standing outside the majority of the time watching the transformers light up the night sky with brilliant shades of blue, green, and pink. We thought it was fascinating, and were still not scared. Sarah was a different story. Around 9:00 pm, Sarah decided that she was going to move into my closet, and had pulled my mattress off of my bed, and shoved it into the closet with her, making a tent out of it. She was livid that we were not protecting ourselves, but we really did not see any reason to. And if I had to make that choice again, which I actually DID have the chance to do, I would do things differently.

Trees started falling and several landed against our building making it sound as if the walls were crashing down. We still remained outside and Sarah remained in the closet. When the winds finally quit, and we pried Sarah away from her safe mattress tent, we took her outside to see what had happened. None of us could have EVER imagined what we saw. It looked like great fireworks, followed by what looks like a tree that vomited, and a million of those cardboard pine scented air fresheners. If anyone ever asked me to describe what a hurricane is like or asked me what I learned I would say the following:

•  Sod doesn't rip up, it just lifts and bends with the ground. The grass and tree roots looked like a table cloth draped over a pile of laundry.

•  You never realize how dependant we are on electricity, until you walk into a room knowing full well that when you flip the switch nothing is going to happen, but you do it anyway.

•  You cannot reach your family because cell sites are down, and cordless phones do not work without electricity.

•  My neighbors are Jason, Francis, and Jean.

•  Just because you are not parked by a tree, does not mean that your car is safe.

•  There are a lot of stars out there.

•  It is possible for a town with a population of almost 2 million people to be QUIET.

•  I always knew there was a reason for me to be addicted to having books.

•  Pop Tarts are good hot or cold, early or late.

•  Even your closest friends are really annoying when there is no option to run away and you are HOT.

•  Your closest friends are the most important people in the world when they are the only people that can keep you from being scared.

Hurricane Charley changed my life and Sarah's life in different ways. I will now be more cautious when they say a hurricane is possible. My life will never be the same. I see the reminders of Charley, not to mention Francis and Jeanne, daily. I also now have a preparedness kit with more batteries and flashlights than I ever thought I would own. Sarah is not so afraid of everything. She made it through a natural disaster unscathed; she says she is now ready to take on walking through a parking lot by herself.

Enrique's Story

The Florida hurricanes of 2004 seemed to strike without warning. The people of Central Florida had not seen a major hurricane in forty years or so. Before hurricane Charley I had been through 2 hurricanes before, being from South Florida. These hurricanes, however, were quite different for me. This time I was working at a major home improvement warehouse. When I went through the past hurricanes, including Andrew, I was left with the feeling that my family and I were the only ones affected by the storms. This is where it was much different for me.

The day after Hurricane Charley I woke up to the absence of power and tens of downed trees. It was hard to make it through the mess in order to get to my truck to drive to work. Once I finally got to the outside of my truck I found my second problem, a tree that was on top of my hood. After investigating where the tree was sitting I saw that there was no real damage. I then decided to back my truck up and be on my way. The drive to work was actually easier than I had anticipated. Although the street lights were all out it seemed that many people had stayed home and there was very little traffic, which was strange for eight o'clock in the morning on Semeron Blvd. When I arrived at work I saw that there were about two hundred people waiting in line to enter the powerless store. I was let in ahead, so that I was able to help the customers that were already in line. At that moment it hit me that there were so many other people besides myself that were affected by this hurricane. After a ten hour day in a huge warehouse with no power during the summertime in Florida , I was very irritable and tired, but I walked away from that store with a feeling that I may have, in some small way, helped out my fellow Central Florida residents. It was one of the best feelings that I have ever had.

-Enrique Cano

Marianne's Story

The night Hurricane Charley hit was one of the scariest nights of my life. Central Florida hadn't been struck by a hurricane in an extremely long time so the surprise element of the storm only added to the anxiety that was already being felt. Charley hit Orlando around nine o'clock and I would soon find out that I was not at all prepared.

The night gave way to noises and howling in the dark that was petrifying. And while the age of the house I was living in showed throughout the night, my anxiety grew. The lights began to flicker and did so for about an hour until suddenly the darkness was met with a power surge. Did a bomb go off? No. It was just my refrigerator shaking and sparking in a coordinated play with my stereo and television. I looked out the crack of my boarded window and saw that the transformer in front of my house was exploding in a cosmic collision of emerald green and electric blue. As I began to wonder if I was going to make it through the night I noticed that a tree was swaying dangerously close to the telephone pole that the transformer was fixed upon.

More fear and anxiety crept in as my hands trembled and the sparks subsided. Another tree toward the back of my house began to scrape the already fragile and leaking roof. A look of horror swept over my face when I realized the tree, that stood about thirty feet tall, began to pitch toward the wall of my bedroom. About twenty minutes went by as I waited for my brand new bedroom set to be demolished. The tree finally gave way and the roof that had already been taking a beating for hours caved and the tree was left to rest on my brand new Ethan Allen bed set.

The night was one of complete dismay and shock. I will never again underestimate the power of nature.

-Marianne Ripley

Ximena's Story

I was about ten years old when my dad came to my room late at night and woke me to make sure I understood what was going on. I was startled but he grabbed me by the hand and brought me to his bedroom to find my two oldest brothers and my big sister already in his bedroom laying in the bed with my mother. I heard loud noises and harsh whistles coming from the living room and what sounded like the front door. I sat in silence while the lights flickered vigorously and my mother lit long thick candles. My oldest brother had frightened eyes and his mouth was half open as if he were in disbelief. My dad paced about the room until the lights had completely shut off and that's when my father finally spoke. "We are in the middle of a bad hurricane," I didn't really understand until the man on the radio that my dad was holding on his left hand quietly said; "Thousands of Floridians are at the moment feeling the darkness and can only hear Andrew tearing apart their homes and neighborhoods." The window shutters were still in the garage and it was too late to place them on the windows. The force from the winds were so incredibly strong that it caused the entire house to shift and the pressure from the hurricane itself was caving in our roof and our windows. We could hear the cracking and shifting that slowly began to make each of cringe tighter for we thought the house would completely give in. The only words that came out of my mouth at this moment was "Randy" and my dad jetted out the room only to return with a wet dog that was completely frightened. My father's face was pale and my mother was staring at him and wondering what we were all thinking; how could he be so wet if he was in his cage in the laundry room. My home was being slowly tortured by Andrew and the trees that I once climbed were now climbing my house. We slept in the bathroom that night, all six of us and the dog, and woke up to a destroyed home and a new found respect for nature.

-Ximena Celedon

Winds of Change            

The season of the century had come, as some said. I, of course, had never seen anything like it, the incessant onslaught of wild winds and rain, seemingly a single bimestrial event. Three rancorous winds changed everything that was home to me.            

The first wind was a terrorizing one. Like a scene of battle, the earth was flared by ersatz lightening bursts as pines and oaks rested their weary souls on the lines that bordered their territory, lines that purported to have fenced them in. This was the first day of loss. For generations these trees whispered secrets to each other while they stood nearly silent to the ears below, sometimes sensed as a gentle breeze. The people didn't understand, the oaks did not speak through the wind, but on this first day the wind spoke through them. He spoke a primeval fury like a detonating volcano against the skepticism that the wind would never be a threat.            

The first wind implemented his might, driving even the giants over, tearing their foundations apart. The wind toppled their fearful limbs like an aged building that had seen its final sunrise, now confronted with the wrecking ball bent on annihilation. So many pines! So many oaks! Omnifarious lives were damaged, of all ages-even adolescent maples fell that day. Life would never be the same. Life was a trance, calling out to find out who was still there, were they O.K. and did they lose anything or anyone? The birds experienced the ruthlessness of the storm as many were displaced from their homes, while men sawed the trees into pieces for infinite piles of leaf and branch and trunk-the horror! As the daily activity was abruptly twisted to tragedy, my heart wept. Yet, I could not help but wipe the sweat from my brow for my fortune, random as it was.            

The second wind was different. It was just as unexpected, and vehemently loathed for its presence at such a difficult hour. It derided us with an evil, violent stir that hung over us. This wind was not as strong as her brother, but it would not leave! She insisted upon overstaying herself, as if enveloping the land with her arms in an unshakable full nelson. We probably put a curse on her to leave more than twenty thousand times. Finally she became bored and moved on, later to be ripped to shreds as she well deserved. My heart sunk when the skies cleared, though it was the happiest I could have been at that time. This wind had pushed me around, damaging my home, leaving me as a threat to my neighbor's safety. I knew that I was ill-starred.            

The third wind was when I gave up, throwing my limbs up in the air with hopelessness. So much was gone, and another sister wind had come to ravage us further. I had been struck with a frailty from the first winds and it spread through my body, head to feet. Tired, I just gave in.            

So here I sit, rotting. My fragments have been dying for weeks. The oak on the front lawn mourns for my loss. I couldn't hold firm, and I became a hazardous threat to fall. The woman loved me, telling me her plans to build a garden to celebrate my beauty. She used to lay under my shade in a hammock gazing up to me with dreams to have her children play in that shade, for her flowers to bloom in it. I'm not angry that they sawed me downS some day I would have fallen, I know. She was counting on me to be there. The winds had other violent dreams that we could not control. So here I rot, as we all will. I will be earth again and bring new life. I accept my defeat with honor. Before I fell, dangling precariously I whispered to her. I told her it was alright and she understood me, her heart as broken as mine. She may not see as many days as I have, but she will not forget me. The shade of the oak will remind her of what could never be.

-Becky Lattof

The included pictures are from a day when many of my dreams began, my engagement day. The sunrise was so unusual. Our pilot lowered the balloon so we could "tickle the pines." Though my husband, family, friends, home and property are safe and I didn't have to pay three insurance deductibles, the environmental loss from these hurricanes has been hard to cope with.

"Twas a Dark and Scary Night."

It wouldn't be fibbing if I were to say it was a dark and scary night because it most certainly was. It was the weekend before school started and there was news of a hurricane named Charlie that was headed straight for Florida . People, including the meteorologists, thought it would be heading for Tampa , but they were wrong. It came to my house in Orlando.

While my boyfriend Matt slept soundly in my bed, I huddled in my dark bathroom rocking back and forth as I heard the wind howl from outside. Millions of dreadful thought passed through my mind: "how would I make it through this.", "I wonder how my family is.", "how can Matt sleep through this.". Finally, I had the guts to leave the bathroom. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to suffer through this alone. I shook Matt awake and pleaded with him to hold me while we tied together in the tempest. He stroked my hair and promised me everything was going to be alright. I struggled to believe him.

About an hour or so later the winds calmed and we desperately rummaged around for flashlights, but there were none. We decided to venture outdoors to see the tremendous damage that this hurricane caused. Slowly, we departed from the front door. We saw the glare of several flashlights out in the parking lot. Others were also outside assessing the damages. Matt suggested that we see if our cars were okay. Matt's Honda Civic looked fine. Then, we continued on to the place where I parked my car. Needless to say, this was a place in which I had previously never parked.

As I approached my 1998 Honda Prelude, I had this ghastly feeling in my gut. Because of the darkness, it was hard to see. Quietly and cautiously Matt said, "Honey, it looks as if there is a tree on it.I think we should go inside." My eyes started to focus and I too saw the tree, but the car looked repairable to me. Oh, was I wrong! I walked around the front of the car and discovered that the tree that sat on top of my car had smashed the top of my car right to the bottom. The car was totaled.

At this moment so many emotions passed through me similar to the gusts of wind that caused this to happen. This was my first car. This was the car that I bought. This was the car that I sped around in that caused me so many tickets. This car was my friend. And now, my friend was sitting there beaten. First, I started crying, then laughing hysterically in the same fashion. From this day forward things would never be the same with my car and me. In this moment, our connection was forever lost.and only a memory remained.

I felt a need to protect the injured metal leftovers, so I sat right by the car. Other neighbors heard about the disaster and wanted to view the jumble. I desperately wanted to conceal it, as if it were the emotional skeletons in a family closet. Matt clung to me and told me everything would be okay and the future would be brighter. He reiterated that now I would have a brand new car. At that time, nothing seemed more appealing than the car I had just lost.

Against my inner wishes, I gradually stumbled back to my apartment. To add fuel to the fire, the apartment was burning hot inside because the electric had gone out. I called my folks and retold the tale of loss. They advised me to take deep breaths and await the days to come. Later, Matt invited his best friend over to help ease my sadness. On a lighter note, we finished the evening in a humorous fashion with the three of us in our underwear listening to the band, The Cure on Matt's battery operated CD player.

People ask me if there is anything I learned about this experience. The main thing I learned is there is a legitimate reason people are scared of hurricanes. Other than that, I learned that material objects can be lost-but maybe that is a good thing.

-Andrea Coverman

Jaci's Story

My roommate, Sabrina, who rarely expresses concern over things, called me from her parent's house on the afternoon of August 13th and asked me to please take some of her valuables out of our apartment because she didn't want them damaged. To hear this from someone who was usually very calm and collected alarmed me a bit.

Many would say we were overreacting. Perhaps a reaction like that might seem extreme for many others. But for us, it was more necessary than we realized at the time.

After getting off the phone with her, my mind was racing with indelible images of Hurricane Andrew's aftermath. I promptly packed an overnight bag with my necessities and sentimental objects and nervously left my 15-year old, top floor apartment. I headed to a friend's house, to find both safety and company.

I rode out the storm with two friends in the seemingly thrown-together apartment complex of Pegasus Landing. We watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games while keeping one eye on the sky and the other on the athletes from a zillion different countries parading their national flags. As the first two feeder bands plowed angrily towards us in the evening sky, the storm began, the power went out, and we watched countless transformers, including the one that supplied energy to our refuge, illuminate the sky with a green glow.

The morning after Charley, everything in my little apartment seemed to fare okay at first glance. However, the thunderstorms that followed later on Saturday must have caused more water to come in through the leaky roof and collect above the ceiling. The amount of water was too much for the ceiling to bear, because on Sunday I received a phone call from my ever-composed roommate. She didn't sound alarmed, so I did not fully understand the severity of her statement, "There is a hole in my ceiling." She said that she and her father went to our place and were going to clear out her room.

And clear it out they did. All of it. When I opened her bedroom door I was shocked to see that half the ceiling was gone and laying on the floor, covered in cotton-like insulation.

When I finally got in contact with someone from management, we were told that we would have to vacate so that repairs could begin. Missing my privacy and my home, I slept in the mess for two nights before reluctantly moving in with a different friend, sleeping on her futon.

My personal stress level at its peak, the days before Hurricane Frances were spent taking another inventory of the objects that I had collected over the last six years. I saved all of my photos, some clothes, and a trunk that was my mother's in her first apartment. I secured these things, and myself, and hoped for the best, while anticipating the worst.

Frances was spent doing everything from watching movies and snacking on everything possible (a popular pastime from what I hear), to conducting Tarot card readings by day and reading magazines by candlelight at night. (Oh and then there was the walk around Lake Eola during which two friends and I found ourselves being pelted by ice cold rain that make up "the first feeder band." I am strangely proud of that. How many people can honestly say they got caught in a feeder band?)

The post-Frances inspection of my home began the morning after. As soon as I climbed the stairs and opened the door, I stepped into a pool of standing water that filled the entryway. My foot was met with a slush as I walked on the carpet. Water was literally running into my apartment. The water stains from Hurricane Charley had returned, the ceiling in the dining room, my bathroom, and part of the kitchen were falling, and the walls were cracking and bowing with water. The other closet and bathroom were absolutely trashed. The ceilings were gone. There were pieces of it blocking the bedroom entrance. You could look up and see the inside of the roof, and in some places, you could see the sky.

I felt like a failure in a sense. I mean, this was my first real apartment - a fruit of the labor of my first job out of college. I paid half of the rent for the place, and bought my share of the furniture that was in it. This was what I had to show for the first year of my life after school. And it was trashed.

And no, I did not have renter's insurance.

After a short period of shock, I quickly came back to earth. Shortly afterward, I tearfully saw my place condemned with a loud red sign that said it was unsafe to enter and I was pretty much risking life and limb if I did. I felt like it was a scarlet letter, and everyone knew that we were two of the unluckly ones. I slowly salvaged the rest of my belongings (I still need a couch. Anyone got a spare?) and engaged in what is still a continuous chain of phone calls to find storage, forward mail, find a new place, and reconcile bills.

Ah, yes, the apartment search, which took many weeks. I had to move my stuff to storage in the midst of what was likely a stress-induced flu, and find a place that was the right price, agreeable, and not storm damaged. It wasn't easy.

Sabrina and I finally found a two bedroom space that would be available almost immediately. We happily, and wearily, planned to move in - the weekend that Hurricane Jeanne showed up. My roommate and I concluded to wait to sign any paperwork, for fear that lightning may strike our newest top floor apartment twice. And strike it did. The place was damaged severely by water leaking in to the ceiling, much like before.

Her disappointment and my frustration caused us to wait for another week and a half for a different, undamaged unit to be vacated. It finally happened and we moved in, nearly two months to the day of being ousted from our original home (which continued to grow substantial mold all over the walls)

To add an ever weirder twist, the friend who graciously let me stay with her throughout these events was convinced that jacking the air conditioning down to about 60 degrees would keep us cooler longer should the power go out during a storm. At any given point during the last two storms I could be seen dressed like it was winter in Canada .

It wasn't all bad though - there was a lot of eating, movie watching, and camping out in the living room. There were a few lessons learned too, such as packing doesn't have to be a big deal, you can just throw a bunch of things in a box and go. And all of these silly moisturizers and products that people invest in aren't really necessary for survival. (Hear that ladies?)

It sucks (really really bad) to not be able to control these things that happen in life. I am just glad that I had a few good friends to help me out. Hopefully this was all just a fluke hurricane season.

And if my roommate ever says, "The walls are caving in," or, "The stove is on fire," or, "Someone from the government is here to talk to you," (it happened) I will know to listen - to and save my photos.

-Jaci Steinberg