A few years ago, my family went through Hurricane Rita, and last week Hurricane Ike hit us.

I woke up at 5 in the morning to the sound of the wind howling and thunder rattling the windows, and it continued throughout the whole morning. I nearly jumped out of my skin when one crack of thunder literally shook the house and dropped off awkwardly instead of fading away like thunder normally does.

Then I noticed that the roof in the bedroom next to mine had caved in and torrents of rainwater were flooding into the room, forming a puddle in the carpet.

It wasn’t thunder. It was a tree that had fallen on the house.

After we situated some buckets under the streams of water, I went back into my room, only to be pelted with even more water. I looked up and saw a long crack had formed in my roof, too.

I evacuated my laptop, enveloped myself in a blanket, and went to camp out on the stairway.