When I was eleven years old, I took off the chain guard on my bicycle because my friends took off the chain guards on their bicycles. We thought our bikes looked "cooler" that way.

Later than same day, while riding by myself across Cartwright Boulevard, the cuff on my pants got caught between the sprocket and chain ... because I removed the chain guard. My bike stopped dead and I was stuck in the middle of that busy street.

When I looked up, a car was speeding toward me, its horn blaring. I struggled to go forward, and then back, but I couldn't move.

The car began swerving and I heard the sound of squeeling, burning, tires.

I screamed, "No!" It was all I could think of doing.

The car was now sliding and swerving toward me, and the thought now occured to me that I was going to die.

I screamed, "No!" again.

The car finally screeched to a halt inches from me.

The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled, "Stupid kid! Why don't you get out of the road?!"

I stood there with one leg on the ground, the other with my pants leg caught in the chain, struggling to move, unable to budge ... crying. The driver studied me, and then got out of the car. Shaking his head, he carried me and my bicycle to the other side of the street. He set me down and then tore the cuff of my pants free of the chain.

"You ought to get a chain guard for that bicycle," he said. Then he got back into his car and drove away.

As I walked my bike home, I looked up and whispered, "Thank you."

Seven years later, when I was 18, I was surfing at Tobay Beach, on Long, Island, New York. It was the month of October and the water was bitter cold, but I had a thick rubber wet suit and could tolerate it. It was early morning and other surfers had not arrived yet. I was by myself.

The ocean was rough and it was difficult to paddle out past the waves. By the time I got "outside", my arms felt like they were made out of lead.

A good wave quickly came up, so I turned around, paddled hard, and caught it. I stood up, smiled, and then slipped off the board into the freezing water. When I bobbed to the surface, I saw my board laying on the beach, hundreds of yards away.

I swam toward it, but I couldn't move forward. There was a strong undertow and rip tide, and instead of heading toward shore, I was being dragged out to sea. My arms grew weak, my shoulder muscles cramped, and became exhausted.

As I drifted further from shore, I thought, "I'm going to die here, all alone, with no one to help, no one to even to watch."

"NO!" I screamed once again. It was all I could think of. Over and over again. "NO!" "NO!" "NO!"

Then a series of big waves started behind me.

My arms did not want to move, but I managed to slap at the water. The first wave carried me a few feet toward shore. A couple of seconds later, a second big wave came and carried me twenty feet forward.

"YES!" I screamed as a third wave carried me still further, as did a fourth.

When the waves stopped, I was close enough to shore that I could just barely touch the bottom. Slowly, ever so slowly, I pushed forward against the millions of gallons of water that were pushing be backward, until ...

I finally walked out of the ocean and away from the death that awaited me. I stood on the shore with my heart pounding and my lungs bellowing.

Then, once again, I looked up and whispered, "Thank you."

Thirty years went by. I was 48, and one summer night I dozed off on the couch in our den while watching tv. In the middle of a deep sleep, I was awakened by a powerful flash of lightning and the explosive thunder that followed after it. Thinking nothing of it, I fell back asleep ... after all, South Florida is the lightning capital of the world. We get lightning like that all the time.

A few minutes later, Amy, my youngest daughter, 19 at the time, shook me.

"Dad, wake up. Something's wrong out back."

When we parted the curtains to our back window, there was a fire blazing in the woods behind our house. Flames climbed thirty feet into the air.

"Call 911!" I yelled to Amy before I ran outside. The fire had now jumped from the woods to the trees around our house.

"Dad!" Amy called out. "The Fire department is out on another fire. They said they'll be here as soon as they can!"

Needing to do something, I hooked up our garden hose, opened the water spicket, and ran over and sprayed the burning trees closest to our house.

The water vaporized upon contact. That's when I learned you can't stop a forest fire with a garden hose. It is like trying to stop a starving lion with a little meatball.

I grabbed my daughter's hand and we moved away from the fire that was now closing in on our house, and everything we owned in this world. Once again, not knowing what else to do. I shouted, "NO!" It came out like a plea.

The fire continued to blaze.

I yelled, "NO!" again and watched helplessly as the fire came within a few feet of our home.

I felt drops, then, on my face. The drops turned into a drizzle, and soon it was pouring. Within minutes, instead of our home burning to the ground ... with us in it ... the flames were out.

Once again, I looked up, and whispered, "Thank you."

I do not know how others would classify these three events, but to me, they felt extraordinary. There were forces of nature at work, forces far more powerful than I, and if those forces continued, unchecked, my life lay in the balance.

Seven years after the fire, there was another extraordinary occurrence, similar to the previous three, but also quite different.

This event involved a Charley. Not Charles. Charles sounds too stiff and formal. No, it was Charley. Charley, like your friend. A pal.

Charley was born off the shores of western Africa on Wednesday, August 4th, 2004. At that time, Charley was a "disturbance", of no great concern. On that same day, our family made its largest real estate purchase ever - a mobile home park where 150 retired couples lived.

Five days later, on Monday, August 9th, Charley was in the Caribbean. He was in a state of "depression", and my family watched after him. Would he grow strong, or die?

We wanted him to die ... and you'll see why.

Two days later, Charley rallied. By 6 PM on Wednesday, August 11th, on the anniversary of his first week on this planet, he approached Jamaica and became an adult. He was now a full-blown, dangerous entity - Hurricane Charley. Good ol' pal, Category 1 Hurricane Charley, with winds of 65 mph.

65 miles per hour? Hmmmmm?

You can stick your arm out your car window when you're going 65 and the push against your hand is strong, but not overpowering. You could respect the power of winds that are 65 mph, but would you be panicked by them? Could they kill you? Probably not.

By late Wednesday evening, millions of people in Florida, and more around the United States, were tuning in to watch the path and growth of Charley. Charley was dramatic and whimsical, a difficult hurricane to predict its path. He changed speed and direction every couple of hours.

The National Hurricane Center said he could hit anywhere between Miami and the Florida Keys, striking the east or west coast of Florida. And he could be either be a pussycat Category 1, or grow into a killer - Category 5. We watched and waited.

On Thursday morning, August 12th, at 8 AM, Charley's winds climbed to 80 mph and it was a sure bet that he wanted to go around the Florida Keys, away from Miami and up the Gulf of Mexico along the west coast ... where we lived. There was a mandatory evacuation for residents of the barrier islands around us like Marco Island, Bonita Beach, Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Pine Island, and up the Gulf of Mexico. It was just like a war. The Police went through those neighborhoods with loud speakers and ordered people out of their homes and off the islands. They had to leave and find shelter inland..

Where Charley would touch ground first and do the most damage was up for grabs. It could have been anywhere along the 200 mile stretch between Naples and the Tampa-St Pete metropolitan area. He could even hit Ft. Myers, where we lived.

It was now time for us to take precautions. My wife and I slid our new Hurricane shutters into place. In less than an hour we were done, and I blessed those shutters.

By the way, those were the same shutters I cursed the year before, when my wife insisted we spend $15,000 on them. I wanted to stay with the $300 in plywood and 2 x 4's that took two people two days to put up, huffing and puffing and dripping in sweat, with splinters in every finger, because after all, the previous two times we put them up, no Hurricanes did any damage.

In the late morning, I filled the gas tanks in our cars, and the empty gas containers in our garages. By 2 PM, most gas stations ran out of gas, and long lines formed at the stations that still had some. At that time, Publix and Walmart also ran out of bottled water and batteries, as well as bread and milk.

By Thursday night, Cuba was on line to be visited by Charley and tv programs had video of Cubans battening down the hatches. The National Hurricane Center had more precise predictions now. After Cuba, Charley was going to ride up along the west coast of Florida and make landfall well north of us, near St. Petersburg.

Our local meteorologists hinted they disagreed with the National Hurricane Center. Fox, NBC and CBS's weather people believed nothing was certain, and they urged the residents of Fort Myers and Cape Coral and Charlotte County to be watchful. Charley might hit further south than the National Hurricane people believed.

At 9 PM, I called the manager of our new mobile home park. She and her family were staying put in her cement block home at the entrance to the park. She was helping the residents wherever she could. There was an eighty-two year old man whom she brought food to, and a ninety-one year old woman whom she found medicine for.

I told her to tell the residents it was safer to go to the shelter in local elementary school, but if it was necessary, she could open our vacant apartments in the cement buildings next to her if the need arose.

I fell asleep late on Thursday night, in front of the tv, not knowing where Charley would hit, only knowing he was coming our way in some form or another, and that he could be annoying, or ... much much worse.

When I woke up Friday morning, August 13th, Charley was still looming out in Gulf, and getting closer. Going to work was out of the question. The only people who were working now were policemen, fireman, hospital workers, and the local Lowe's warehouse employees. Those of us that weren't still nailing up plywood over our windows, were perched in front of our TV sets in dark, shuttered houses, waiting for more news and tracking information.

Cuba got clobbered overnight by Charley with sustained winds of over 100 mph.

100 mph! Triple digit wind speeds are apt to take your breath away, along with the roof of your house, and your car.

At 9 AM, I called our Rabbi, remembering the synagogue was close to the shoreline, and had 80 girls from the ages of 10 to 18 staying there for summer camp.

"Rabbi, what are you doing about it?" I asked him.

"Doing about what, Zalman?" he asked back.

Our Rabbi does not watch tv so he had little indication of the seriousness of Charley. After I explained to him about Category 2 and 100 mph winds, I asked him:

"What are you going to do?"

"Watch and pray," he answered, "although not necessarily in that order."

"Well, while you're praying, Rabbi," I joked," please say something for the residents of our mobile home park."

At 2 PM on Friday, we started to experience hurricane conditions. The wind was blowing 40 to 50 mph, and the rain was pouring down, and sideways. I was sitting in our living room when the tv starting beeping and making eerie noises. The program I was watching was interrupted by a special report from the local weatherman.

"Charley is now officially a Category 3 Hurricane with sustained winds over 125 mph, and the eyewall is wobbling."

This was a new term in our Hurricane dictionary. We had come to learn that the circle around the center, or eye, of a Hurricane was an "eyewall." Now we were learning that this eyewall usually traveled in a line, but sometimes, it "wobbled." When it wobbled, it abruptly changed direction.

Charley's eyewall was now wobbling. It stopped heading due north toward St. Petersburg. It was now heading west, straight for Fort Myers and the Caloosahatchee River.

In other words, it was heading right for us.

And my Rabbi and the 80 girls. And the 150 families in our mobile home park.

I called my Rabbi.

"Rabbi, you need to go. There is a good chance the Hurricane is coming up the Caloosahatchee and you are less than a mile from it."

"And where am I supposed to go, Zalman?" he asked. "It is pouring down buckets, the streets are blocked with downed trees and tree limbs, and we have one car and one van and 80 girls. The girls are all here with us in the synagogue and we're saying Psalms and praying."

I sighed and said I would keep him informed.

Two tense hours later, at 5 PM, the tv made beeping noises again.

"Charley is now a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 140 mph, and gusts of over 160 mph."

160 mph gusts! What could withstand 160 mph gusts?

The phone rang. It was my Rabbi.

"Zalman, do you hear that?"

He held the phone up and I heard noises in the background that sounded like a group of teenage girls all talking at once.

"What's going on, Rabbi?" I asked.

"The girls are praying for you and your mobile home park."

At this exact point, the tv began beeping again. The weatherman came on.

"The eyewall is wobbling again ... I've never seen anything like this. Charley was heading east, toward Fort Myers, but now he's wobbling and heading ... north ... Yes, Charley is going north .... he is going to miss Fort Myers and he is now headed for ... for Charlotte Harbor and the Peace River."

When Hurricane Charley went up into Charlotte County, it had sustained winds of 125 to 140 mph, and gusts that spawned tornadoes.

I drove up to Charlotte county a week after the Hurricane and took pictures. What I saw shocked me.

Charlie destroyed many of the older mobile homes within a mile of its center. On some of them, all that was left was a floor. The roof and the walls and everything inside was torn up and scattered. Charlie also destroyed many of the older houses in his path. It blew off their roofs, and then poured rain down, ruining everything inside.

Charlie even wrecked the cement office buildings and hospitals by blowing out the windows and pouring rain into them. There was a Hurricane shelter in Port Charlotte that could not withstand Category 4 winds and fell apart with people inside it.

If the eyewall did not wobble, and then move directly north, it would have run along the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers and destroyed most of older houses, and mobile homes, within a mile of the center. The Rabbi and the girls were less than a mile from the River. The synagogue they were huddled in was over 30 years old. It would have had its roof torn off, and the girls inside would have gotten drenched and scared, and Baruch Hashem, probably not much worse than that.

The mobile home park we purchased was also located a mile from the Caloosahatchee River. Every mobile in it was 30 years old, or older. Almost all of the 150 families in mobile home park stayed home, electing not to leave and go to the overcrowded shelter around the corner at the local elementary school.

None of their dwellings were constructed to current hurricane windzone standards. At 80 mph, they would have started to fall apart. At 140 mph, they would have been shattered, and then scattered to the winds, like the mobile homes in Charlotte County. People would have been severely injured, and worse, some would have died.

A few weeks after Hurricane Charlie, someone asked me, "Do you believe in miracles?" Before I answered, several images came to mind.

I saw myself stuck on a bicycle and a speeding car heading toward me ... I felt myself surrounded by icy water and being dragged out to sea by a powerful rip tide ... and I felt the burning heat on my skin from a raging fire.

I heard myself shouting "NO!" at them, pleading for them to stop.

Then I heard, once again, the Rabbi calling me up, and the 80 Hasidic girls chanting Psalms and praying in the background. I saw a tv screen and the radar image of Hurricane Charley overlaid on Fort Myers and I saw, once again, Hurricane Charley's eyewall wobble, and then head due north, away from the Caloosahatchee River, away from Fort Myers, away from death and disaster.

I answered, "Yes, I believe in miracles. I saw one with my own eyes."

THE END