Last year, in addition to the hurricane situation, we responded to 30 disasters here in Henderson County. The bulk of those were single-family fires. They were certainly full blown disasters to the victims and it's our chapter's responsibility to recruit, train and organize people to help them.

I think we had a little addition by subtraction this year and more guys bought into what we were doing [defensively]. We played much better.

We know what it's like to go through something like this, with the Hurricane Ivan floods last year,

He got to the hole way too many times, and we didn't have the bulk to stop him.

I think in a lot of ways, I've responded to a lot of things this year kind of like a rookie ¿ as far as appreciating things. I've been around a lot, but you can appreciate things a little bit differently when you've been away. It's a different Opening Day than I've experienced in the past, just because of where I've had to come from.

If you've got to have a hurricane, this is the kind of hurricane you want to have.