Near death experience #2

This one was way scarier to me. In Sept 2005, we were warned of a hurricane forming in the Gulf of Mexico. Then we were ordered under mandatory evacuation to leave our homes. This is something SE Texans have lived with our whole lives. Never before this had a hurricane actually hit us. We watched Rita form and barrel towards us. We did evacuate, but we only traveled about 40 miles North, thinking that was far enough away. Two days before the storm would hit, we were at my in-laws house, in the woods, just waiting, like dummies. Then it came, and we might as well have been at our house. At 12:00 am, we were wakened by shattered glass and lights out. A tree hit the side of their house. It was Nathan's parents, my parents, my grandpa, and a dr mom worked for and his wife and two kids, in a three bedroom house. Then we all woke and gathered in the hallway, all of us. We sat there all night, from midnight till 8 am. Sitting in the hallway. At one point, another tree hit the house. The dr was actually in the room when it hit. Water started pouring in. We huddled in the hallway. Nathan and I hugged and cried most of the night. No sleeping. 8 hours of hell. It sounded like a train going by all night. 100 mph winds all night. Tornados, trees falling. I just knew we were all going to die. It wasn't a question in my mind. I just knew that a tree was going to fall down that hallway and kill us all. That feeling of certain death for 8 hours was horrible. I didn't think of my life. I just kept thinking of a tree falling and killing us. Little did I know how close it came to happening. One of the trees that fell would have fell on us, but the brick wall held it up. It was actually two trees on each other, on the house. If the bricks would have given way, we would havfe been dead. In the morning, the storm died down, and we were ready to get out of the house. There was tornado warnings still. We felt that getting out of the house to the school across the street would be safer. We had to climb out of a bedroom window since all three doors were barred by trees that had fallen right in front of the house or on the house. It was the scariest moment. Needless to say, during the next evacuation, we went 300 miles North. I will never put myself in that situation again. Then Nathan helped his parents clean up their house all day. Then we went to Austin at 8 that night, with no sleep. There is more to that story, but I'll leave it there.

I just wonder, does everyone experience something so close to death. I feel lucky to have made it out of two situations that could have claimed my life.