Let me start this story by saying that this is no way meant to indicate, insinuate, nor implicate anyone or anything about the fine Disney Corporation. They run a great operation worldwide and the events laid out below are the result of dumb luck multiplied by a freak accident added to being in the wrong place at the right time. The odds of this happeneing to anyone on any amusement park trip are pretty much 0%, but it's just wacky enough that I thought it might be a fun read for coasterimage visitors. Please do not view this as a slam on the Disney folks in any way. It isn't.

In early 2001 we were still living in Florida and had just found out that we were going to become parents for the second time. With an expecting wife trips to the amusement park aren't exactly the giddly little joyfests you might expect. I don't expect her to be pleased about weighing roughly 7000 pounds more than usual, then stomping around an amusement park and looking a rides she wants to ride, but can't. However, we're still making the rounds. One of the great compromises of the 2001 season was the Disney Park Hopper tickets. We figured the price was right (Florida residency has one nice perk) and, of all the parks we could visit, that Walt Disney World would offer the most to a...well, to put it bluntly - pregnant lady. The Park Hopper pass gave us 4 days of use and freedom to roam the parks as we saw fit. Cool.

We used 2 days of the tickets in the Spring with a quick little jaunt to Orlando and visits to Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Magic Kingdom. The summer kicked into full force and we traveled to other parks for the most part. Before we knew it, summer was over and my wife was getting close to her late September due date. We needed to use the other two days on our tickets. We opted for a trip around Labor Day and headed to Orlando for one last "only child" trip to Disney for our daughter.

It started out innocent enough on September 3rd. We rolled into town and went straight to Old Town. The park was surpringly dead and we had a great time even though Windstorm was down. After killing the evening we headed for our hotel.

Now this part of the story is semi-important...kind of, so stick with me. There's a cluster of chain hotels (Wyndham, DoubleTree, Hilton, Courtyard, Best Western, etc) that I believe actually sit on Disney property. They're walking distance from Downtown Disney, beyond the big Disney World sign if you come from the right direction and they're listed on Disney Resort brochure maps as recently as the one that I just got in the mail a few days ago (February 2004). I'm not sure exactly what the affiliation there is, but there's certainly some relationship with Disney. We were staying at one of these hotels. This happened on Disney property - making it all even crazier.

The next morning we got up and headed out to Disney/MGM Studios (to be simply Disney Studios come 2005). The weather was warm and my wife was hanging in there while my daughter and I went nuts on the rides. Around mid-afternoon we considered slipping out and heading to Epcot to slow it down and get something to eat, but ultimately decided to finish the Studios off, cut out a hair early and head back to the hotel. This was the the first step in getting our car crushed although no one knew it at the time.

We left the park around 5pm and drove back to the hotel. Since it was so warm, we opted for a spot on the far end of the lot under a really nice, big old shade producing tree to keep the car cooler for when we got back in shortly to head out for a bite to eat. This was the second step in helping our car become scrap.

Everyone was looking to cool off. We cranked the air conditioning, and kind of slumped around the room, surfing TV channels until we stumbled onto the Simpsons. I don't remember the episode, but we got into it and rather than catch a quick drink and some cool air and head right back out, we found ourselves watching. This timing was the third step.

In the middle of the episode one of those weather warning messages came across the bottom of the screen explaining that severe weather was moving into the area. We flipped to the weather channel and saw that a small, but very strong, cell was moving across the state and was closing in on Orlando. No biggie, stuff like that happens in Florida all the time. We stepped out on the balcony to survey the sky. In the distance were some of the most ominous clouds I've ever seen - and I lived in Miami Beach when Hurricane Andrew hit. We milled over the idea of taking off right that second and trying to beat the storm to a restaraunt or just waiting for it to pass. We waited. Fourth step complete.

We stayed on the balcony watching the weather move in. The wind kicked up. Then it kicked up some more. Rain started falling. Then falling harder. Suddenly there were huge, strong gusts of wind and the sky just seemed to open and dump water. Lightning and thunder started. In a matter of seconds, it went from thunderstorm, to very stong thunderstorm, to "holy crap" level storm. We slipped back inside the room and it was actually getting hard to move against the wind. We slid the door closed and partook in the standard "Can you believe that?" talk. In less than a minute, what was hurricane style weather became rain. Just rain, but still pouring like I've only seen once or twice in my life. We opened the door to survey the weather and heard a car alarm going off. Still in the confusion/excitement of the whole storm blowing in thing, it took a moment before we realized that it sounded a lot like our car alarm. We popped back out onto the balcony (our car was directly outside our balcony, just on the far side of the back lot - we could see it). Anyway, we stepped out and looked across to see if it was our alarm. This is where time both stands still and speeds up at the same time. The collective IQ in the room drops 60 or 70 points and things get blurry, but more focused than ever. It was just surreal. Dreamlike.

Half of that nice, big old shade producing tree was now sitting in our parking spot with our little 96 Sentra pinned under it just beeping away like someone calling for help. I swear we both looked at the car for 10 minutes (or maybe 2 seconds) and just looked at each other like "Shit, that's our car under there!"

Then things get really blurred in my memory. The rain was pouring. I ran down to make sure this was all real and to kill the car alarm. A crowd gathered under the awning of the back entrance to the hotel. My wife contacted the hotel manager. I grabbed my camcorder. I might have even peed myself, I'm not sure. My car was just crushed by a gigantic hunk of tree that split off the main part!

I'll spare the gory details of what happed over the next 4 or 5 hours, both because it's not nearly as entertaining as the rest of the story and because it really is all a blur. The hotel was quick to claim no fault and at first were quite curt and even rude to the situation. Onlookers were suddenly legal experts throwing random advice my way as I tried to save the valuables that were still in our rapidly flooding car. My wife trying to figure out what we were going to do. We were 2 hours from home and our car was squished under their tree. It was nuts.

That night we walked over to Planet Hollywood and had dinner when it just kind of hit us, "What if we had tried to beat the storm and were in the car when that tree came crashing down?" - A long shot, but certainly a scenario that could have played out. Just look at some of those pictures. If we had rushed out for dinner, there'd probably be no coasterimage to be reading right now.

In the end everything worked out nicely. The hotel agreed to pay for a rental car for us to get home with and use until we were able to get another car. Our insurance company treated us like kings. In the crowd of onlookers there were two gentlemen who stand out in my mind. The first was an older man who quickly took digital photos of the scene before the hotel staff got down there and started messing with things. He then got my e-mail address and forwarded the pics to me "just in case". Very thoughtful. The other was a hispanic dude, just a hair younger than me who was getting a huge kick out of the whole thing. Not in a bad way, but in a "you just gotta laugh" way. The guy literally fell to the ground laughing when I pulled out the camcorder and started filming the car. He added some much needed levity to the situation. We actually ran into him the next day at the Magic Kingdom exiting Splash Mountain and he caught me and asked how it was going and wished me luck. Again, very thoughtful and appreciated.

Like I said, the hotel paid for a rental car. My only gripe there were the constant phone calls asking when we would be taking it back. I mean we had to buy an new car and we needed the insurance company to pay up to do it. The insurance company came through and gave us a check for WAY more than anyone should have gotten for a 5 year old Sentra. We ended up picking up the new car and returning the rental on September 11th. Talk about a weird day. We're all excited about a new car and the country is under attack. Kind of a weird way of putting things into perspective.

So, yeah, things worked out and it made for a great amusement park story to tell. And hey, with that big fat insurance check we were able to get leather interior, the 6 CD changer, upgraded 7 speaker sound system and lots of other little goodies in the new car. We kept that car 35 months to the day before we traded it in. If the person who ends up buying it could only know the story behind it, huh?