Ever experience a hurricane???

This is an excerpt of an email from my friend Carrie, who survived Wilma while vacationing in Mexico:

The past 5 days have been nothing short of a living hell. We are just so glad to be OK. We really, really want to get home... but feel so fortunate to be here to write you...So, Thursday, we were evacuated at 10 as I had written, though at that point... no one knew how SLOW Wilma was actually moving. They postponed our evacuation to noon. And then 2. And then 4. And then finally placed us into a ballroom, the 'safest area of the resort', at 9. Accommodations at that point were fairly comfortable. In a large ballroom with close to 600 others. Though plenty of water, food, and blankets. As the winds picked up, we started to grow more concerned as there was water streaming down the walls, huge crashes and booms against the building exterior, and the doors were starting to give to the gusts, despite the plywood and sandbags.The eye started to enter Playa Del Carmen, sometime in the morning, around 8AM. I can't explain to ANYONE the noise and chaos that a level 5 hurricane produces, though can assure you that I would not even wish this experience on my worst enemy. All was fine until there was a huge gust of wind and an enormous noise. We looked up to see DAYLIGHT IN THE BALLROOM. The hurricane PEELED BACK the ceiling of our shelter. Our only saving grace was that the eye had situated over us, so the air was pretty still and the rain had stopped. Though one more gust of wind lifted the ceiling like a parachute catching air. Bad. We were all scared. Really, Steve and I thought that was it. Thank god, all remained virtually calm... as they systematically removed us from the room. We then were placed into a restaurant until the eye passed, though they got us out with the kids before the gusts commenced again. Every time the wind blew, the doors shook and appeared to be in the danger of giving way. We were quickly moved into a concrete food pantry storage with all of the other families with children, where we remained for the next 2 days.We slept on concrete floors with no belongings other than a little bag where we had rationed food and water. There were approximately 60 people in our small space. It was very wet, dirty, and hot. Taking all into account, however, conditions were as good as they could have been. We had plenty of food and water...There was a lot of standing water and sewage back up, but the resort tried it's hardest to keep us clean and calm.It took FOREVER for this stupid thing to pass. It felt like the rain and wind would NEVER pass. Though we made it. We were finally let out of the shelter yesterday morning,. The resort is trashed. Glass everywhere. Roof shingles. Roofs and large debris. Palms uprooted. The palapas are stripped. Several of the rooms had been blown to bits. That being said, the resort fared better than we had though. Fortunately, this part of PDC has HUGE beach fronts... so we are MUCH better off than the folks in Cancun, despite the hurricane had dropped to a 3 when it finally hit them. We wish we knew how it really hit. The resort next to us went virtually untouched, while the one next to it is GONE, flattened.We are now in a room. All of our things survived, though FILTHY, At this point, we could really care less. We have clean linens, water, food, and beds to sleep on. No electricity, but we do have water (freezing) to stay clean. Parker has been repeating over and over 'I miss Mrs. Rovin and my class'. The boys really need normalcy. They made several friends within the shelter and Parker journaled and drew pictures the whole way through. Though his reoccurring picture was of him standing in front of our house with a HUGE smile on his face. We are all ready to get home and put this behind us. His biggest fear... he will miss Halloween. Their innocence has been refreshing.