It was September 21, 2005. Anxious, scared, excited, interested, curious, frightened; all the things I felt on this exact day. I was sitting in class with a million images jogging my brain. My friends, who were more afraid than I was, turned to me for a little cheering up. I didn\'t have anything to say. I had no words for them. I needed someone to cheer me up. I just sat there wondering how this could happen. When I got home my mom was packing, which made my stomach turn. The mere thought of leaving all i had behind made more afraid then I could ever recall. She told me to pack 3 sets of clothes, but I was determined to make whereever we ended up, feel like home. I packed every single memory I could find, which concluded my room in 7 resonably big bags. The next morning we met 2 other familys at our emergency meeting spot, and the other familys and mine devised a plan. We were to go to Florida. The parents told us to think of it as a vacation in the attempt to calm us. We headed out. It took us the entire day to get to our first stopping point. We stayed the night in one of the familys relatives houses, in the woods. It highly resembled something out of a horror movie. The next day we headed for Florida and made it there about 3:00 the next morning. We had these beach houses that was one of the familys, we stayed in them, all cramped up. They were extremely fancy houses, but they werent home. The first night in the houses, my friend and I laughed and tried to make the best of the situation, but once we began to watch the news, I began to cry. I watched my town fall to pieces, and there was nothing I could do. The next two weeks were hard, but the men went home, and called with great news; our houses were fine. We proceeded home, and lived for about a week without electricity. It was a very scary and tramatic experience, and I will never forget it.\r\n~Alexis L. ,Texas