by Angie Pollock

Created on: May 15, 2008   Last Updated: March 09, 2009

No one can be fully prepared emotionally for the aftermath of a major hurricane. It is possible to physically prepare your family and property for this type of disaster. Every year, thousands of individuals prepare for the hurricane season which officially begins June 1st and ends November 30th with the height of the season being August through October.

As a resident of South Florida, I am all too aware of the hurricane season and after Hurricane Jeanne in 2004, I will never take another hurricane season lightly. The hurricane season of 2004 was an especially busy time in the Atlantic Ocean. On September 4, 2004, Hurricane Frances came ashore on the east coast of Florida. On September 25, 2004, Hurricane Jeanne came ashore finishing off what Frances had started.

I had seen the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 but never had to experience living through such an ordeal. I know it is only a matter of time before we are plundered again by one of these massive storms so I am always prepared physically.

My husband was deployed overseas and it was my responsibility to prepare the family for both storms. Mentally, we handled Frances pretty well. It can be unnerving to sit in pitch black dark and hear objects hitting your home. Luckily, the next day we awoke to minor damage and a flooded yard. Obviously, we had no electrical power and the temperatures were scorching. We started the process of clean-up and going back to our normal lives within days.

Hurricane Jeanne would change my attitude towards hurricanes forever. During Jeanne, I was huddled with my three children in the hallway praying for my children's lives. I will never to this day forget the sounds that seemed to never stop. The house would shake, rattle and breathe. The suction from the air moving in and out of any crack it could find made the house sound like it was trying to take its last breath and my heart would race waiting for it to explode. The doors would shake in their frames and the winds screamed.

I had no idea what I would see when the sun came up but I was already mustering up all of my courage to face it. My first memory was not the sights but that of the smell. The ground was still saturated from Hurricane Frances and with the earth not taking in anymore moisture, the neighborhood septic tanks started overflowing.

We lay in the hallway outside of the master bedroom. When morning came, I could see light coming from underneath the bedroom door. My anxiety level started to rise because there

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