Hang On

Though I love the icy North Dakota prairies I call home, my first home was the tropical Atlantic coast of south Florida.

In the year before I was married, I rode out three hurricanes there with my family, standing in awe beside my brother at the stillness in the eye of the storm.

The eye is the only calm part of a hurricane, from the frenzied people stocking up on gas and water beforehand to the lashing, otherworldly winds in the dreaded eyewall. 

The entire harbor was blown away t...