I am 53, have lived in Gulfport all my life, and sat through Hurricane Camile with a 200 mph wind blowing through the house, and thought I knew what a hurricane was... But I had a lesson to learn. Our home was 115 years old, on the beach and did not have water during Camile, so we thought we would be high enough to stay dry.. So there we sat. My wife Andie and I, our 13 yr old twin daughters, our 6 yr old daughter, my 30 yr old Son (yes 30), and Sir Dekota Copper our 2 yr old Dachshund. About to learn that lesson I mentioned. As it turns out we were very fortunate to survive. \r\n But if nothing else, our being in the house during the storm has given me the chance to help my neighbors in their attempts to be fairly treated by the insurance companies. ... At 4:59 my alarm clock went off because the power had gone out, and I got up to check the wind. I went outside and upstairs to the porch of my guestouse that was behind the house with a 32 ft long porch faceing the beach. From there I could see if the water was rising over the beach. The sun was just rising so it was hard to see, but water was just over the South lane of Hwy 90. I told my Son to come down with me and that we were leaving.. As we went down the guest house stairs toward the main house the French doors on the East side of the house blew open. Shawn, my son, went to the garage to grab a hammer and nails, and then we went into the house to nail the doors closed.. As we were nailing the door my daughters woke up and came downstairs.. It was between 6:05 and 6:15, and I told them to go back upstairs, get dressed and ready to leave. literally as we spoke there was a loud noise, and our house seemed to jump off its piers and onto the driveway. I could see out the back through the French doors that the guest house had been knocked over to a 45 degree slant, and that the back house deck was buckled. The main house was cracked like an egg.. rain coming in everywhere, wind through the cracks.. a total mess.. We went out the front door to try to see what happened, and discovered that the neighbors house that had been South of me was now sitting on the top of our house. Also the brick building that was sitting on the North West corner of 18th Ave and 15th Street was gone, and the architects office to the West of her building was mashed. The neighbors house just north of the corner building was gone, and at least half of the house that sat North of that one was gone. three and a half large buildings gone completely. El Magueys Mexican restaurant, the Elks club and the Gulfport Ladies club were also gone.\r\n We could not stay out on the porch long, but it had to be a tornado that hit and it hit hard and quick. We went back in and tried to save as much as we could, but at a little after 9:00 the water started coming in, through the air conditioning vents in the floor and the house strating shaking as waves started pounding it. We started carrying food and anything else we could carry upstairs and within 10 minutes we were chest deep in water down stairs and were headed up to the second floor.\r\n As water started rising into the second floor I pulled cords off the lamps, computers and anything else I could grab, and wrapped them around the waists of the girls so we would have something easy to hold on to. Then we wrote their names on their arms.. I truly did not think we would make it out of the mess we were in, and wanted whoever found us to be able to identify the bodies. \r\n When the water got knee deep in the second floor we headed out onto the roof. As we crawled out of the window my wife Andie put the girls behind a dormer to try to partially protect them from the rain and other items that were blowing at us. Then just as I got out on the roof I heard Andie shout to look out. I looked in her direction to see what she was yelling about and as I did a wave broke over us. I could not believe that I was on the roof after crawling out of the second floor and waves were going over us.. This simply could not be possible... but it was happening... All I could think was where do we go now? there was no place higher to go, and we were being battered by waves... After about three waves hit, Andie and I were both washed off the roof but She was able to grab the edge and get back up on the roof with the help of one of our daughters.. By the sheer grace of God one of the twins, Samantha, was able to stand up, walk down the slick aluminum roof grab her Mother and pull her up. \r\n I swam for the next three hours, trying to get back to the house, and watching Andie, the girls, my Son, and Copper the dog ride roofs. Our house drifted northward, and hit the house next to us. They jumped to that roof and rode that house across second street until it rolled and then eventually managed to get into the attic of a third house when a neighbor opened an attic window just in time to save them. \r\n When the second house rolled I was underwater and when I came up I thought I had lost my entire family. After that happened I was washed across 18th Avenue, and onto a porch of a house that had collapsed, and was then knocked backward through the glass front door of the home. \r\n I crawled back out onto the porch and for the next two or three hours I sat on there yelling the names of my family hopeing that somehow they were Ok and would here me. Then just as I had about given out and lost all hope, my Son appeared on the roof of the house across the street. I can truly say that I have never been as glad to see him as I was at that time. It took a while fro him to hear me yelling because the wind was still blowing above hurricane stregnth, but he finally say me. After a few minutes of yelling it was clear that he did not know where the girls were but he crawled away to go look for them. And after about twenty minutes he reappeared on the roof and indicated that he had found the girls inside the house that he was on. \r\n At that point I sat and waited until the water dropped to a level that we could safely cross the street and then Andie came across to me. \r\n When all was over all we had left was one three foot piece of 2x4 attached to the garage foundation, a bathtub, and the clothes that we had on. \r\n But none of it mattered because by the grace of God we were all alive and together, and much smarter.\r\n\r\n Now, like so many others we work to rebuild our lives and our home. \r\n \r\n