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BRADY DENNISElated after riding out the worst of Hurricane Charley Friday in a closet of their Sanibel Island home, the Comptons - from left, Wil, his daughters Emily, 16, and Jami, 14, and wife, Tylor - say they spent the time praying to Mother Nature and laughing at their cats.
SANIBEL - It was dark in the small closet. And hot.
The house rattled and trembled around them. The wind screamed outside.
Wil Compton turned to his wife, Tylor, their two daughters - even their cats - and apologized.
"Sorry I got you into this," he said.
A voice came from the darkness.
"Don't worry about it. We're here together."
It had seemed only right to stay and ride out Hurricane Charley.
Wil Compton, a 59-year-old real estate agent and avid outdoorsman, has lived on Sanibel Island for most of his life. Tylor, 47, has lived here two decades and teaches at Sanibel School. Their daughters Jami, 14, and Emily, 16, are in high school in Fort Myers.
The 12-mile-long island counts just 6,000 residents, although it swells to some 20,000 in the winter. The Comptons have little in common with tourists, who come and go like the tides.
They call themselves "island people," which seems to mean easygoing and unfailingly generous.
Their stilt house, with its pastel colors and artsy decorations, sits on tiny Buttonwood Lane, within earshot of the waves crashing ashore 100 yards away.
They thought Hurricane Charley was headed north of them Friday, so they ignored the mandatory evacuation ordered for the island.
Then came word - too late - that the storm had turned east and headed toward them. They had no time to leave.
So they squeezed together into the small bedroom closet. They held hands and hugged. They prayed, though not to any particular god.
"We were praying to Mother Nature," said Tylor Compton.
Her husband nodded.
"The sun is my energy," he said, "and the ocean."
Island people.
Amid the fear, the Comptons managed to find humor in tight spaces. They laughed that one cat slept while the other two freaked out during the storm.
When Jami asked, "What if the house really does fall down?" her mother replied, "Don't worry, we have clothes all around us" to cushion the fall.
They laughed at that, too.
It lasted only a couple hours, but the memory of their time in the closet will last a lifetime. So will their thankfulness, because they know full well that others were not so lucky, that Charley's wrath took other lives and spared theirs.
They have no water and no electricity. They lost a few trees, and their house suffered some damage from flying debris while other island homes were hit harder.
Saturday, the bridge to the island remained closed and the streets were deserted. Police shooed back inside anyone they encountered. But the Comptons have each other and a roof, and all of a sudden that seems like plenty.
Friday evening, when the water stopped raging and the winds stopped howling, the Comptons emerged from their closet.
Wil and Tylor opened a bottle of Sutter Home chardonnay and, in relief, almost finished it.
The girls ran off down the beach, laughing and playing.