Tropical Storm Dolly entered the Gulf of Mexico Monday morning and like many other folks, I’ll be watching it every step of the way.

Forecasters are predicting that it will strengthen and become a hurricane before hitting shore near the southernmost tip of Texas on Wednesday morning.

Of course, we know forecasters can be wrong – and that’s why I continue to watch Dolly as she makes her way across the gulf.

Like many other local folks who lived here on Tuesday, July 15, 2003, I will always remember Claudette who came ashore downgraded to a tropical storm, but still packed a considerable punch with winds well over 100 MPH.

So when I hear people in the media talk about how Dolly will only be a category one or two hurricane – as if that’s some kind of gentle breeze, I just have to wonder if they have ever experienced the power of one of these storms up close and personal.

When Claudette approached Karnes County, I was out taking pictures for the paper. The wind intensified as I was out driving around. It just kept getting windier, and windier and windier.

I kept having to drive slower and slower as the wind and rain pelted the side of my Explorer.

At one point it got so bad, I had to just pull over to the side of the road and stop. The wind was rocking my truck from side to side. I looked over and saw a fire truck parked at an intersection with its emergency lights on.

"Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into," I thought.

It was so bad, I didn’t think I could make it home to Cestohowa, so I slowly made my way to my mom and dad’s house in Kenedy, where I took shelter and decided to ride out the worst of it.

It was much worse than what anyone had predicted.

All the experts said it would quickly die out after coming ashore, so many of us thought that it would be very weak by the time it reached Karnes County, which is about 90 miles inland.

But that proved not to be the case.

Claudette ended up being a very powerful tropical storm and it caused a great deal of damage to Karnes County and many other parts of south Texas. Most of Karnes County lost power and some places were without power for several days. Many trees were knocked down by the force of the winds and many homes and businesses were damaged mainly as a result of these powerful gusts of wind.

One thing that I will always remember is how angry I was with the WOAI radio station for shutting down news coverage of the storm after it came ashore.

WOAI had "wall-to-wall" coverage as the hurricane approached the Texas shore, but as soon as it came ashore and was downgraded to a tropical storm, the news director, apparently, lost all interest in the story.

So there we were. The power is out. We’re sitting in the dark. The wind is howling and we can see sections of our neighbor’s roof flying up in the air and we’re all sitting around this tiny battery powered AM radio listening for storm updates.

And what are they talking about?

Hillary Clinton.

They had someone on a talk radio program, talking about the "Clinton Years" in the white house. We wanted to know where the center of the storm was, where was it headed, and most of all, was it going to get any worse? But during those hours, there was not one single update on Tropical Storm Claudette and I was so mad I could have spit nails.

I’m still mad about that – even five years later!

Although it wasn’t a hurricane when it came knocking on our doorstep, Tropical Storm Claudette sure made an impression on me and the one thing I remember thinking is, "If this is a tropical storm, then how bad is a category 1 hurricane? How bad is a category 3? A category 5?"

It left me in awe of the fact that sometimes the power of nature can be absolutely overwhelming.

And that’s why whenever one of these storms comes our way, I watch it very closely and I make sure we have flashlights, and batteries and everything else we might need – just in case.

I have decided that whenever one of these big storms gets close, I will not hesitate to get out of the way – even if it means leaving my home for a while.

Although our home and belongings are valuable to us, there is nothing more valuable than our lives.

So if and when it becomes necessary to evacuate – for the safety of myself and my family, you can bet that’s just what we will do.