August 13, 2004 seemed like any other hot summer day for my in-laws living in Punta Gorda, Florida.
That is until Hurricane Charley hit with wind gusts that topped 180 mph.
Officially Charley was listed as a Category 4 hurricane.
It was 3 am two days later when we finally received a phone call from my mother-in-law. She said hello and then was cut off.
We sat anxiously wide-awake waiting for a return call. A few minutes later it came through, stating they were alive but shaken up.
They had spent the hurricane huddled with friends in a condo in which the windows were blown out during the storm, rather than in their double-wide mobile home on the intra-coastal waterway.
At 7 am, we rented a U-Haul truck and my husband started the long drive to Florida to salvage what belongings they could.
He drove the truck from South Carolina, rather than chance being able to get one down there to rent.
I wanted to go, but with two children that had just gone back to school, there was no way I could.
My husband, his sister and her husband, and my in-laws spent a week in sweltering temperatures that hit well over 100 degrees in a home with no electricity, desperately trying to salvage what they could before the mold set in.
My husband said that it was all he could do to work for five minutes until he had to sit down drenched in sweat.
He said he saw his dad age five years before his eyes.
I guess you could say they were some of the lucky ones. They were alive. They had a badly damaged and soon condemned home that still had some belongings. Other belongings were blown away. Their pool area, carport, and lanai were destroyed.
Unable to make decisions in their shaken state, my husband took some of their salvaged furniture back to our house where it remained for a year and a half.
Today, they live twenty miles further inland in a townhouse.
Four years ago, we tried desperately to get them to come north when predictions of the impending hurricane were forecast.
But after over twenty years of predictions that didn’t come true, they refused to come, placing bets on the odds being in their favor.
I researched the few remaining plane seats, talked about going to get them, and cajoled them to come.
Unfortunately, until a hurricane is almost upon you, you don’t know where it will hit.
Do you stay put and hope for the best, or do you get your family to safety, even if odds are it won’t hit?
By the time they knew it would hit, the highways were packed and the flights were either sold-out or grounded.
Last week, we inserted the “2008 South Carolina Hurricane Guide” into our papers.
Use the guide to make sure that you are prepared for the next Hurricane Charley or Hugo that could hit our area.
Most people who ride out a hurricane say later that they will never stay put again, that they will use common sense and get to safety.
Our government is much better prepared than when Hurricane Hugo hit our state in 1989, having learned some lessons that year. The lane reversals, done immediately, should alleviate some of the traffic woes that occurred that year. There will be inconveniences, but isn’t the safety of your family and pets worth the inconvenience?
We will never again take for granted the safety of our family in such an occurrence.
I tell my mother-in-law that I love her before hanging up the phone each Sunday, and I do.  And I thank the Lord every day that we still have them in our lives.
The next time a strong hurricane is headed their way, I won’t be on the phone talking to them, I’ll be on my way to get them.