When I decided to come to Islamorada, the only thing my mom told me was that at this time of year, Florida was having hurricane season.

I had never really thought about something like that and had never really been scared of it. I didn’t even think about what it would be like going through one of those tropical storms or hurricanes. But I did it twice, and everybody has told me that this is a great story. So I want to tell you the stories about these two hurricanes (storms).

The first, named Katrina, went through the Florida Keys during the night. This was after my first week, when I lived with Anthony in the house near the canal to the sea. We didn’t even know that a hurricane was announced to hit the Keys. The day before the weather was still great (sunshine all over). And even in the evening the weather was okay. It started raining a bit, but none of us even thought about something like a hurricane.

While we were sleeping, hurricane Katrina hit Islamorada . After we woke up in the morning, we slowly realized that something must have happened during the night. When we went out of the house to get breakfast, we saw all the fallen trees around the house and in the neighborhood. Happily the Race Club van in front of our house wasn’t hit by one of the trees! But no such luck for the little storage house to the left of our house. A big tree hit it right in the middle!

The second hurricane named Rita took a bit more time to get through the Keys. This time Anthony had already left, but don’t worry, Michelle was by my side! This time there was really no chance to miss the hurricane. All the TV-stations talked about nothing else all day after the incredible devastation Katrina had left in New Orleans.

As all this hurricane news coverage scared us a bit this time and as it really looked like a big storm, we almost left the Keys. But in the end we decided to stay and join one of the famous hurricane parties. We put all the shelters on The Race Club house and left to stay at a friend’s house (where all the living space is upstairs) for the hurricane just in case of flooding.

And once more the hurricane didn’t hit Islamorada hard. It was all down in Key West this time. We only had strong winds, a lot of rain and some flooding in the neighborhood.

Thus, we had a free day (no workouts!) and learned one thing about hurricanes:

Surviving hurricanes is easy…
…it’s the south Florida’s news coverage that kills us!